


Snow

by TheSprout



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: "Like I don't usually read mpreg at all but I'm starting to see the light of it all", Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Baby Clothes, Breastfeeding, Discussion of Abortion, Domestic Fluff, Every pregnancy cliché ever, Family Drama, Fluff, Hospital, Hurt/Comfort, Knock Yuuri Up Week 2017, Lactation, Legal Drama, M/M, Married Life, Morning Sickness, Mpreg, Non A/B/O, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Kink, Pregnant Sex, Real Life, Regular world where men can't get pregnant, Smut, Soft sex, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-13 19:00:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 66,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12990465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSprout/pseuds/TheSprout
Summary: Yuuri is tired. He keeps getting cramps and nausea but nobody knows what is wrong with him. After several weeks he discovers that his condition is actually very common. At least in women.All the tests indicate that Yuuri is pregnant. Against all odds he decides to keep his baby, and Victor meets him where he is.





	1. Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> Here is a mpreg story set in our world, where men cannot get pregnant and so Yuuri is a little miracle. It however also means that he and Victor are not so ready for the news, and that on top of their own fears they will have to deal with other people's reactions. Long story short, I get to write fluff and angst in the same story. 
> 
> This chapter was betaread by [StargateNerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StargateNerd/pseuds/StargateNerd), thank you very much! <3
> 
> I hope you enjoy! :)

Yuuri is tired. The chilly air of the rink makes his eyes water and the only things he can focus on are the big clock on the farthest wall and the slow movement of its big hand.

He has had all the trouble in the world getting out of bed in the morning, and now the training session is killing him. His legs feel like he has run a marathon before breakfast and he is dizzy for several seconds after every jump. He knows he didn’t sleep well, but he did not think it would affect him so badly.

Victor watches him botch a double loop without a word and tries to help him get through practice without hurting himself.

To be honest, Yuuri has been tired for a couple of weeks now. He blames it on the changing weather, the first days of spring that came chillier than usual and brought him a cold, the end of the skating season that has been more demanding than ever on his body. Victor is now officially retired, but at twenty-six Yuuri knows he still has at least a couple of years and a handful of medals to win before he has to put away his skates, and he will not let a little seasonal cold shorten his career.

He tries to go to bed earlier and dress warmer when he goes outside. It will probably get better now that he can rest a bit and the sun shines longer every day.

 

It is still dark outside the morning Victor wakes up to the delicate sound of his husband throwing up in the toilet bowl. He clumsily jumps out of bed to find Yuuri pale as a ghost, his whole body shivering on the bathroom floor, agitated with violent spasms as he vomits everything he has eaten in the past twenty-four hours.

Victor dampens a hand towel to wash and cool down Yuuri’s face, but his sickness does not pass. Cold beads of sweat run down Yuuri’s neck and Victor takes his phone out with one hand to call a doctor as he rubs Yuuri’s back with the other. Yuuri protests that it is unnecessary, but he cannot finish his sentence before he gags and bends over the toilet again.

The physician diagnoses a food poisoning. Yuuri blames it on the mashed potatoes he ate the day before at the rink’s canteen. He is advised a two day rest and Victor decides to stay at home with him.

The next day Yuuri feels sick again in the morning but takes the anti-nausea medication and forgets about it. He sleeps a lot and soon feels better.

Yuuri avoids the mashed potatoes at the rink’s canteen and resumes his usual training rhythm. The incident is almost already forgotten when a week later he cannot help but notice how terribly sore his muscles are after practice. He is surprisingly out of breath when he finally slumps on the bench at the end.

Yuuri is questioning his usually great stamina as he takes off his skates, and he frowns when a rancid smell tickles his nostrils. He breathes again and inhales a full cloud of a disgusting salty stench. Before he can move to get fresh air, his throat tightens and his guts twist.

In front of the lockers, Yuri freezes with his can of fish jelly and his fork in his hands. His eyes widen behind his bangs when he sees Yuuri throw up his breakfast over the bench.

“I’m so sorry,” Yuuri stutters, leaning against the wall to stay up despite his wobbling legs as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“It’s ok, just sit down, I’ll get a mop,” Victor says as he heads out of the room.

Yuri throws his canned lunch in the bin and slams the door of his locker before running out.

“BEKA! KATSUDON ALMOST PUKED ON MY SKATES!”

 

Yuuri spends the rest of the week at home, partly because he is ashamed that the locker room still smells like vomit because of him, but also because he tends to feel dizzy upon standing and Victor forbids him to put on his skates until he can stand up from the couch without seeing stars. Yuuri decides to reduce his meals to plain rice and boiled vegetables to try and calm his upset stomach and avoid another food poisoning.

 

And yet at breakfast on Sunday morning Yuuri is eating a bland bowl of oatmeal when his eyes stop on the kitchen counter and he gets a ridiculous idea. He keeps eating but cannot forget it and salivates just thinking about it.

When Victor joins him for breakfast he looks at Yuuri’s bowl with a perplexed frown. He bends down and sniffs the mixture suspiciously.

“Did you… Did you put soy sauce in your oatmeal?”

Yuuri nods slowly. “I wanted to see what it tasted like. It’s quite good, you should try it.”

In the following days Victor catches Yuuri squirting ketchup on his sushis, and making a mayonnaise and Nutella sandwich in the middle of the afternoon. Yuuri tries to convince himself that there is nothing wrong with trying new culinary combinations.

 

Although all the major competitions are over, Victor does not make Yuuri’s training sessions easier in April. That afternoon Yuuri is doing well, but it’s the fifth time in three hours that he asks for a break. Victor tries to ask him if everything is alright and Yuuri wiggles in front of him, rubbing his knees together and clenching his fists at his sides. Victor starts to comment his latest run through and Yuuri pretends to listen for about thirty seconds before he throws himself past the rink door.

“Sorry I just really need to pee!”

After a week Victor does not ask anymore when Yuuri leaves the ice in the middle of practice.

 

Part of the reason Yuuri is tired, he knows it, is because his nights are restless. Although he feels extremely tired during the day and would sometimes sell his blades for a nap, he has a hard time getting a full night’s rest. When he does manage to fall asleep he has vivid dreams and nightmares that wake him up at ungodly hours, heart racing in his chest. When he cannot sleep it is always for very strange obsessions. At the beginning he just turned in his bed and tried to fall back asleep. Sometimes he got up to have a glass of water. But now it has become too difficult to ignore.

That night as he lies in his bed, he does not want to be alone in his confusion anymore.

“Victor,” Yuuri whispers in the dark.

Victor mumbles in his sleep.

“Victor.”

“Yuuri?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Hm.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Snacks in the kitchen.”

“I want chicken nuggets.”

“… chicken breasts in the fridge.”

Yuuri cannot believe he actually woke up Victor for this.

“No…” he mutters sheepishly. “I… I want McDonald chicken nuggets.”

“We’ll go tomorrow.”

“But I want chicken nuggets right now.”

Victor yawns and stretches to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand.

“It’s 4 am.”

“I know,” Yuuri whines, “I swear I know, but I’ve been trying to sleep for hours and I can’t, I keep thinking about chicken nuggets and creamy ranch.”

Victor raise his eyebrows and blinks in the dark. It is not like Yuuri to wake him up in the middle of the night unless it is a life threatening problem, and surely chicken nuggets are not a matter of life or death.

“Creamy ranch?” he repeats, half asleep, half concerned.

“I need creamy ranch.”

Victor reluctantly turns on the bedside lamp and flinches when he sees Yuuri’s face only an inch away from him, eyes wide open and pupils dilated. Victor manages to convince him look in the kitchen to see if something can appease his hunger, and falls back asleep long before Yuuri crawls back in bed, stains of blue cheese sauce on his pajama shirt and brownie crumbs on his cheeks.

 

Mid-April Yuuri vomits his lunch on the ice when he catches a whiff of Georgi’s perfume. Victor holds him up to get him off the ice and Yuri accidentally skates in the half-frozen puddle of digested food. He curses the Katsuki family over a thousand generations and then some.

 

Victor makes an appointment with another doctor for Yuuri. The physician listens to their reports of binge eating and vomiting and suggests it might be bulimia. He gives Yuuri the number of a psychiatrist, who later agrees that Yuuri has mild anxiety, but no trace of eating disorder beside a strange taste for unusual food mixes.

 

Yuuri’s condition forces them to change their usual schedule. They still go to the rink together but train less intensively, and although they have not talked about it, Yuuri knows Victor is getting worried about the next competitive season. Yuuri tries his best not to complain and to make his symptoms less obvious, but Victor knows Yuuri too well and always notices when something is wrong. Yuuri protests when Victor cuts practice short one day, claiming he can still go through his program several times, but Victor stops watching and pretends not to hear him until Yuuri accepts to take off his skates. After skating alone for twenty-three years, Yuuri now barely ever skates when Victor is not there to look at him.

Some days Yuuri feels perfectly fine and is convinced he is not sick anymore, but there is never a full week without a hitch.

One Thursday Victor finds Yuuri standing in the kitchen, his shoulders shaking as he sobs uncontrollably.

“What’s wrong?”

“Makka ate my cracker,” Yuuri stutters.

Victor looks down at the crumbs on the ground, and then at the box of crackers, still full, on the counter.

“You can have another one?” he offers, confused.

“But it was my cracker and she ate it. The others won’t taste the same.”

“I swear they will, they’re all the same. Look, I’ll eat one to taste them,” Victor says as he takes a cracker and has a bite.

Yuuri looks at him silently for a second and then his lips distort in a wince and he bursts out in tears again.

“You ate my cracker.”

Victor does not know what to say to that, and so he holds Yuuri close without a word until his tears stop.

 

The next day Yuuri apologizes. He knows his behavior makes no sense and he is afraid that he will soon reach the limits of Victor’s patience. Every time he feels sick he prays that he will not have to watch Victor mop the floor again. He tries to be as discreet as possible to avoid admitting how many bathroom breaks he needs in a day. He does not wake up Victor in the middle of the night anymore, he slowly slides out of the bed and tiptoes to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich with the light of his phone. He knows they are married in sickness and in health, but surely there is only so much vomit someone can put up with, and Victor has already been dealing with his illness for several weeks.

 

During a particularly tough morning practice Victor finds that Yuuri seems quite unsteady on his skates, or maybe his sweats are too tight, but he is definitely developing a whole new style of dance that involves a lot of wiggling and elaborate step sequences.

Yuuri feels strangely hot in his training gear. May is warm and sunny but the air in the rink is as cold as usual. He has already taken off his jacket and his gloves, but his cheeks are still red with heat. There is some kind of impatience in his body, a nervous tension that spreads from his core to the tips of his fingers and toes. Even when he starts to get tired from his jumps and spins it is still there, distracting and uncomfortable.

He flubs a triple toe and takes a second to rest before getting up. Ass on the ice, he looks up at Victor and sees him press a finger on his lips as he types on his phone.

Yuuri suddenly feels both extremely stupid and terribly embarrassed. He considers getting up and resuming his routine, but he knows it will not help with his situation. He looks around him. The rink is almost empty.

Yuuri skates up to Victor at the barrier, does not give him time to joke about his last awkward hip move, and grabs him by his T-shirt to drag him into the men’s bathroom without even putting on the guards of his skates.

Yuuri’s face is tense, his jaw clenched, his cheeks flushed, and Victor fears he will be sick again.

“Are you alright? You look like you’ve got a fever…”

But Yuuri does not seem to hear a single word, he looks right in front of him, his expression strangely serious and confused at the same time. Victor prays not to have to clean up vomit in the rink’s bathroom again.

Yuuri pushes him roughly into the first stall, falls on his knees before even closing the door, and swiftly pulls Victor’s sweats and briefs on his thighs.

Victor’s eyebrows jump high on his forehead. “Oh wow...“ he breathes, “Haha ok erm… Ok.”

Victor is not one to complain, and he feels like Yuuri does not really care about his opinion anyway. In fact, he is already taking him deep in his mouth, one hand at the base and the other in his own pants. He is so determined and fervent that it only takes minutes for Victor to get hard and spill in his mouth, while Yuuri comes all over his hand.

It is not the first time they have had fun in the bathroom, but it sure had never been so quick.

Yuuri has an apologetic smile, washes his hands, and is back on the ice before Victor can catch his breath in the toilet stall.

 

Victor thinks it is just a lucky day and does not ask further, until Yuuri jumps him the second they get home after practice, strips him naked before reaching the bedroom and rides him fiercely on the couch, making sure to let the neighbors know how much he is enjoying it.  Victor cannot help but notice that Yuuri is far more expressive than usual, and he is proud to be doing such a great job as a lover.

“I’m sorry, I just…” Yuuri says as he pants afterward, flushed and sweaty on the couch.

“I can’t say I didn’t like it.”

“I just kept thinking about it, I was getting hard for no reason, I just needed to…”

“Always glad to help.”

 

Some days Yuuri feels even worse than usual. He has started to experience a kind of stomach ache he does not remember ever having before. It is like a hand is clenching around his lower abs, like someone has punched him between his hips and keeps pressing a fist inside him. At first he tries to ignore it, but after a tough day of practice he gives up and miserably slumps on the couch without even taking off his shoes.

“Are you alright?” Victor asks with concern. “Do you want a cup of ginger tea?”

“No, it’s not nausea, it’s like… cramps. It’s in my abs and it… it radiates in my back.”

“Do you want a back rub?”

“No I’ll just… No…”

Victor watches him curl up on the sofa, hold his knees over his chest and tuck his head in.

“Yuuri?”

“Can you draw me a bath please? As hot as you can stand.”

  
One day at the end of May Victor has to grab Yuuri by the arm when it is time to leave the rink, because Yuuri is engrossed in the contemplation of the children skating class that is just starting.

Yuuri does not understand how he did not notice the children sooner. They are awkwardly wiggling on the ice and agitate their short arms to try and maintain their balance. They look at the same time kind of funny and incredibly cute. Yuuri gasps when one of the children falls on his butt. A couple is standing at the barrier and cheering for a little girl in a pink winter coat. Yuuri observes them for a few seconds and feels strangely warm in the chest.

Victor pulls on his arm again and Yuuri pouts.

“We'll have to queue for lunch if we don't leave now Yuuri…”

“But look at their skating boots! They’re so tiny! And that little hat! It’s adorable.”

 

Two days later Yuuri receives a large package at the apartment. Victor watches him unpack a dozen  knitting needles, five colors of wool, and two pattern magazines. Yuuri threatens to knit Victor an abominable Christmas sweater, and Victor stops complaining about the balls that now cover the coffee table, and pinches his lips to stay silent when he sits down on a crochet hook.  

 

On the first Sunday of June they invite Yuri for lunch, and when he leaves at the end of the afternoon Yuuri stops him on the doormat.

“Yuri wait!”

He walks up to him and wraps a ridiculously long, clumsily knitted scarf around his head until his blond hair is completely hidden and only his piercing eyes shine through the thick wool.

“There,” Yuuri coos, “you’ll catch a cold if you go out with your neck bare. You should wear a hat to protect your ears you know.”

Yuri slowly turns to Victor. It's 80° outside and Yuri has to tie his hair up so it won’t stick to his sweaty neck.

“Victor,” he growls behind the scarf. “What the actual fuck.”

Victor watches Yuuri's face distort and his bottom lip quiver. He pales and bends to talk in Yuri's ear.

“I’ll buy you lunch tomorrow if you leave without making a scene,” he whispers quickly. “Please.”

Yuri frowns in confusion and Victor pushes him outside, closing the door before he can utter a word. Victor sighs in relief when Yuuri smiles happily, feeling strangely satisfied with his gift for Yuri.

 

The next physician they meet has Yuuri undergo STDs tests despite him being married for over two years. There is no link between chlamydia and nausea but it could explain his frequent trips to the bathroom, and Yuuri is ready to try anything that could give him an answer. The doctor earns a dark glare from Victor when he suggests that he should also get tested even though Yuuri’s results came back negative, and the whole waiting room is glad to hear that Victor is a faithful husband and that just because they are a gay couple it does not mean they fool around every now and then.

 

Yuuri keeps complaining about feeling tired and skips several training sessions to take three hour naps in the middle of the day. Summer is approaching and he spends lazy afternoons trying to rest and keep his stomach in check.

It does not prevent him, however, from sneaking up on Victor at inappropriate moments to demand attention. Whether they are at the rink, the restaurant, or the mall, Yuuri always finds an occasion to look up at Victor through his fluttering lashes and bite his lower lip before pushing him in a changing room and yanking his pants down.

Maybe it's the thrill of the moment, the excitement of being in a public place where someone could find them, but each time is more intense for Yuuri. Things that he barely noticed before now make him moan so loud Victor fears they will be heard. The mere idea of feeling Victor’s skin against his own gets him flustered. Each climax comes stronger than expected and leaves him limp and panting in Victor’s arm. Victor quickly gets used to Yuuri's new drive, and never complains when he is dragged in a corner for marital duties.

 

A fourth general practitioner lets Yuuri talk about his symptoms for about thirty seconds, and after looking at him with squinted eyes, he somehow concludes that Yuuri is gluten intolerant. Yuuri throws up on his shoes after he washes his hands with scented sanitizer and Victor looks very pleased.

 

Yuuri also manages to throw up in a taxi, where the smell of leather seats wins over his anti-nausea medication, and in a coffee shop, because of a strong espresso aroma. Every time he practically dies of embarrassment and spends several minutes apologizing and helping to clean up. Yuuri is convinced it is only a matter of days before Victor says he cannot take it anymore and they need to divorce.

 

It is early in the morning but the sun already shines high in the sky when Victor sees Yuuri in the bathroom, standing on the scale in his underwear and looking down at the numbers with a confused pout.

“I put on five pounds,” he says without looking up at Victor.

“It’s muscle weight, you’ve been working hard on quads.”

“No.” Yuuri shakes his head. “My jeans are too tight, it’s butt, hips and thigh fat. And the waistband of my sweats is tight too.”

At first Yuuri thought his training gear had shrunk in the wash, but when he realized none of his sweatpants allowed him to squat for a spin comfortably anymore, he had to find another explanation.

Victor watches him pinch his thigh and pull on a fold of skin. “Maybe you should cut down on mayo a bit?” he suggests.

Yuuri knows Victor does not mean any harm, it is rather common during the competitive season for him to make a quiet comment when Yuuri tries to take a third serving of a dish. But this time the words cut him to the quick and immediately make him angry. He already has so much to worry about, he is anxious about his health, he fears for the next skating season, and now Victor thinks he is getting fat. He looks up suddenly and flushes. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” he blurts.

“Sorry I just…”

“I don’t care what you think, leave me alone!”

“Yuuri, I didn’t mean to…”

“Why is everybody so mean to me?” Yuuri sobs as the first big hot tears run down his cheeks.

Victor has hardly ever looked so helpless.

 

They make an appointment with a gastroenterologist and after a series of not so glamorous tests, samples and swabs, nothing is found.

They are advised to see a urologist, who might be able to explain the cramps Yuuri has in his lower stomach, and if not, at least find the reason behind his multiple bathroom breaks.

Victor insists on driving fifty-five minutes to find a woman urologist to make sure no other man gets to touch Yuuri’s intimacy.

In the waiting room Yuuri turns the pages of his magazine without taking the time to look at them. Besides his mother, Victor, and maybe two old men at the onsen, no one has ever seen him naked, and certainly no woman has ever touched him there. He focuses on the idea that she will only be doing her job, and that she has probably seen more men’s attributes than Chris. Probably.

“Relax,” Victor says as he puts a hand on Yuuri’s thigh to stop the twitch of his leg.

“It’s not you who’ll be naked in front of a stranger.”

“I can get naked too if that makes you more comfortable.”

Before Yuuri can answer, the door of the doctor’s office opens and a distinct “Mr. Katsuki?” resonates in the room.

It turns out that the urologist is a hot and open-minded young woman, and she offers to give them her personal phone number ‘in case they want to try something new’, all the while holding Yuuri’s balls in the palm of her hand.

She does not find anything wrong after examining Yuuri and lets them go with her business card and a not so subtle wink.

The ride home is particularly silent. Yuuri soon cannot stand the tension anymore.

“Victor stop it.”

“What?”

“You’re sulking.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m just surprised at how much you enjoyed her cleavage.”

“You were watching me, you know it turns me on.”

“We sure saw how much you liked it.”

Yuuri sighs as he looks out the window to hide his burning cheeks. “She was checking my prostate,” he mumbles between his teeth.

“And then she checked your erection.”

“Park the car,” Yuuri orders suddenly.

“What?”

“I’m still hard and I’ll be hard forty-five minutes if I have to wait for us to be home.”

 

Three days later Yuuri and Victor are waiting in line in the bagel shop near the rink to get lunch, and after five minutes in the queue Victor sees Yuuri lean a bit too far to the side. He catches him before he can actually fall, but Yuuri is out cold in his arms. He comes to himself only a minute later but Victor has already called for a doctor, and Yuuri is too disoriented to protest when they take him in the ambulance.

The ER intern concludes it is hypoglycemia and tells Yuuri he can go home after giving him a cracker. Victor insists they will not leave the hospital before Yuuri gets a full check-up. Yes, he is aware of how much a private room costs, no, he does not want to call his insurance to know if it is covered.

By the power of Victor’s credit card Yuuri gets tested, prodded, sampled, and scanned in just about every possible way.

Yuuri knows the staff is judging him for undergoing such an advanced series of exams when he looks perfectly healthy aside from maybe feeling a bit tired. He is one more hypochondriac who could give his spot to someone who is actually sick.

The nurse who does his blood work jabs the needle four times in his forearm before finding a vein. The specialist who conducts his cardiac stress test lectures him lengthily for not telling him earlier that he actually is a high-level athlete. Yuuri almost passes out from the stress when he has to explain he may momentarily have forgotten that he is a world class champion, and Victor in the corner hiding his laughter behind his hand does not help him compose himself. The MRI technician plays on his phone as he waits for the scan to be over without once looking up at his monitor. Yuuri even manages to anger the janitor by throwing up in the hallway on his way out.

At the end of the day he is so shaken and exhausted he sobs all the way back home and it is long before Victor manages to calm him.

 

It is no more than twenty-four hours later when Yuuri’s phone rings and he is asked to come to the hospital as soon as possible.

 

The receptionist opens wide eyes when he gives his name and she elbows her colleague in the ribs so she looks up from her keyboard. She silently slides the datebook toward her and points something with her pen. The other woman looks at Yuuri over the counter and gapes like a dead fish.

In the waiting room Yuuri feels like an animal in a zoo. He can see heads pop behind the windows of the rooms, some nurses walk in front of him several times in a very short period, each time glancing at him not so furtively. He hears whispers behind him and turns to see a group of nursing assistants chatting with low voices and looking at him curiously behind their clipboards.

Victor also seems to have noticed the strange behavior of the hospital staff and twitches nervously in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs every other minute.  After an uncomfortable half hour, an old man with a white blouse walks up to the reception desk. The secretary nods toward Yuuri and the man lets out a distinct “Ah.”

His office is gray and dusty. Two chairs in front of a large desk. One of the walls is covered with old and heavy books. On the nameplate on his desk, his degrees take up more space than his actual name.

“Mr. Katsuki, we have received the results of the tests you did this week,” he says slowly as he opens a folder and carefully spreads documents on his desk.

“I’m dying, right?”

“No, you’re not dying. We examined the results of your blood and urine tests, and our deductions have been confirmed by the MRI. You have a rare form of pseudo hermaphroditism.”

“A form of… What?”

“It is not exactly that simple but to make it short, your secondary sex characteristics are masculine, but your primary sex characteristics are those of a female. It’s due to a different sensitivity to hormones when you developed as a fetus in the womb. Most patients live perfectly well with this peculiarity and it’s usually only discovered by accident when they visit the hospital for another reason.”

All of this makes very little sense to Yuuri.

“Why does it make me sick then?” he asks in incomprehension.

The physician clears his throat.

“You actually have a second condition, and it’s this second condition that makes you ill and tired.”

Yuuri gets paler if possible. “It’s cancer, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s a very common condition, we see it every day in this hospital and nowadays very few people die from it. My own wife has had it twice and she’s absolutely fine today.”

Yuuri relaxes slightly. Victor takes his hand and they smile at each other until the physician continues.

“The scans showed that you have a uterus, and considering to your test results, we can say with almost no possible mistake that you are pregnant, Mr. Katsuki.”

Yuuri does not blink. There is the heaviest silence in the room and the doctor’s words float in the air, echoing in his ears without really reaching his brain. After a long moment a tiny voice rises next to him and pops his bubble of confusion.

“Who’s the father though?”

Yuuri did not think he could feel any worse, but he does.

“Victor, are you kidding me!?”

The doctor fumbles in the folder and takes out another document that he places on the desk so Yuuri and Victor can read it.

“Thanks to the blood samples we took when we checked your blood type against your husband, we were able to run a paternity test. You are, without a doubt, the father, Mr. Nikiforov. Congratulations.”

His last word is barely audible, lost behind the loud thump Victor makes when he hits the floor after passing out on his chair.

 

“I should have been the one fainting, Victor,” Yuuri says bitterly as they wait for the physician to come back in his office after leaving them alone for a few minutes.

“Do you know how long my mother cried when I told her I was gay?” Victor mutters almost for himself. “She cried because she would never have grandchildren…”

“Well I have a uterus so you’re married to a woman now, you need to go back on your coming out.”

Victor sighs and rubs his face with his hands.

“This does not change who you are, it does not change anything, anything at all.”

 

When the doctor sits back behind his desk he turns the pages of his calendar and speaks without looking up at Yuuri and Victor.

“I can schedule an abortion next Friday,” he says casually. “It’s in a week, but considering your case we need to make a particular appointment with a surgical team. I hope it won’t be too much of an inconvenience for you. You are probably still in the legal delay but it doesn't really apply here anyway, it’s a case of force majeure.”

Yuuri does not have time to think before he hears himself answer.

“No, it’s alright, I’ve been sick for almost three months, I can wait a week more.”

“Perfect. We’ll need to make a preliminary appointment before Friday so we can prepare the operation, among other things we need to know how far along you are.”

Yuuri shrugs. After four physicians, two specialists, and a full check-up, he really does not care if he has to undergo a few more exams, so long as he can get this over with.

The appointment is scheduled for Tuesday.

 

That evening Victor walks into the bedroom to see Yuuri standing in front of the mirror, his shirt pulled up under his chin and his hands flat on his stomach. Victor leans against the door frame and watches Yuuri turn slowly, observing his profile with worried eyes, gently brushing his belly where it is so subtly swollen. Yuuri stands there for a moment, looking down at his belly button, pulling down his  pants waistband down his hips to have a better look. He could swear his lower stomach is getting rounder by the hour. He has suddenly realized how tight he unconsciously kept his abs to fit in his jeans, and when he unbuttoned them while watching TV earlier he let out a sigh he did not know he was holding.

“I still kind of think it’s a joke you know,” he tells Victor without looking up. “But I can feel it, it’s just there, inside me.”

Victor walks up behind him and hugs him.

“It looks like you ate too much katsudon,” he says with a smile as he looks at Yuuri’s reflection in the mirror. He tightens his embrace. “It’ll soon be forgotten, in a week it’ll be over and you’ll live normally again.”

Yuuri remains silent. Somehow Victor’s words do not make him feel better. They are full of a soothing confidence, a promise of an easier time, but Yuuri finds that he is not looking forward to that time. He is anxious about the operation.

Victor brushes Yuuri’s cheek with his hand and presses a finger under his chin, tilting it up to kiss him.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers, “I’ll take care of you until you feel better.”

Yuuri pinches his lips. “Thank you,” he mutters.

Under his fingers he can feel the tiny bump between his hips, and when he looks at the mirror again he is shocked to see that his traits are so drawn that he barely even recognize himself.

Yuuri decides not to talk to his family about his condition before it is all over and he can calmly explain them what he went through. He knows that right now he would only worry them and make himself even more anxious than he already is.

 

On Tuesday Yuuri is back at the hospital and wiggles uncomfortably on his chair. He had to drink a whole bottle of water with breakfast for an ultrasound in the morning, and no matter how tightly he crosses his legs he feels like his bladder is about three minutes away from exploding.

There are two heavily pregnant women sitting with Victor and him in the waiting room, and Yuuri repeats to himself that a lot of people have to undergo ultrasounds for things other than pregnancy, and that he and his husband are not completely out of place in this room. He vainly tries to ignore the posters with baby pictures and the leaflets for childbirth classes.

The technician’s eyebrows disappear behind her bangs when she calls “Mrs. Katsuki” and sees Victor and Yuuri stand up. Yuuri is too busy trying not to pee himself while also considering crawling behind the desk to hide in embarrassment to correct her. She looks at him up and down,  then at Victor, and gestures for them to come in.

There is a giant, very detailed illustration of a female reproductive system pinned on the wall in front of him, and Yuuri seriously contemplates running out, until the technician drizzles a cold blue gel on his lower stomach and he is trapped between the ultrasound probe and the exam table. He closes his eyes and hopes for the procedure to be over as soon as possible. Victor takes his hand and presses gently, and Yuuri practically breaks his fingers in return, unable to hide his stress.

“Holy shit it’s really there…”

Victor and Yuuri both frown in concern and the nurse chuckles.

“I’m sorry, I thought my colleagues were kidding, but it’s actually there, look…”

And she points at a white form on the monitor. It is mostly black and white snow though, and Yuuri simply chooses to believe her when she says that the small clear dot is a baby. He is glad she found what she wanted to see and crosses his fingers that he will soon be free to go. He looks at Victor and Victor seems slightly amused. They exchange shy confused smiles and look back at the screen.

At this moment the picture gets clearer and the nurse draws a large circle with the tip of her finger, far larger than the little snowflake Yuuri had been staring at.

“Here’s the head… and here, the body, with the legs right there…”

Yuuri’s jaw falls slack and his blood freezes when he looks at the whole picture and sees what it represents. It is like his heart just stopped beating and sunk in his chest, his whole body is covered in goosebumps and he can feel the hair rise on the nape of his neck.

Since the revelation of his condition, the idea of being pregnant had been quite a vague concept in his mind. To be honest he had never really thought about pregnancy in his life. As a gay man he was very likely never to have to deal with a pregnant person, whether himself or his lover. His sister had not expressed the will to have children, and so the whole process of growing a human had remained a blurry mystery for him.

Beside his symptoms and the slight swelling of his lower stomach, he had no idea what exactly was going on in his body. He had this ridiculous image from 6th grade class of a tiny seed that would one day grow, a small bean that made him sick and sapped all his energy. He thought he was pregnant with a few cells, he thought the fetus looked somewhat like a microscopic raspberry, that it was nowhere close to looking like a baby.

And now it is there in front of him, displayed on the wide monitor. It is a baby with a round head and a tiny nose, gently moving its small arms and legs to curl up on itself.

“I suppose you can’t tell me the date of your last period?” the nurse asks as she poorly represses a chuckle. “You’re about eleven weeks in.”

Yuuri knows Victor is also trying to remember what they did eleven weeks earlier that was so exceptional it made him pregnant.

“Do you want to hear the heartbeat?” the nurse asks again, this time with an excited smile.

Both Yuuri and Victor are gaping at the screen, perfectly motionless as they forget to breath, and it is like neither of them has even heard the question. The nurse interprets it as some sort of beatitude and she takes it as a yes. The black and white picture stops moving and they see the graphic of the signal appear underneath. A new sound fills the room and echoes in Yuuri’s mind. It is a quick rhythm, muffled as if they were underwater, but strong and regular. Yuuri can only feel his own heart tighten  with each beat he hears.

 

“I was not ready,” Victor says gravely once they are back in the parking lot.

Yuuri cannot even answer. He shakes his head slowly in agreement. They sit in the parked car without a word for several minutes, staring blankly through the windshield. It feels like the image of the baby is imprinted in their retinas and the thumping sound of the heartbeat still resonates in their brain. Yuuri looks down at the envelope in his hands and opens it with feverish fingers. They just left the exam room but he still feels like it is not real. He takes the small black and white photo out of the envelope and holds it up so Victor can see. Yuuri is not even sure that it is his own voice that he hears.

“I can’t believe we did that.”

 

The next days are slow at their apartment. Yuuri mechanically rests his hand on his stomach several times a day, and every time Victor reminds him that he does not have to be anxious, that he will soon be cured, and that he is there for him.

At first Yuuri feels embarrassed when he is caught stroking his stomach, but after a few times he gets irritated that Victor feels the need to call him out on it and does not let him do whatever he wants with his hands.

In the grocery store Yuuri stares at a mother with her baby a bit longer than it is socially acceptable and Victor smiles, saying they almost had to buy a stroller but, luckily, they found out in time. Yuuri wonders if the baby in his stomach could look as cute as the baby in the stroller front of him. Surely it looks far cuter.

The next morning Yuuri’s sickness is less intense. His growling stomach gets him out of bed. Victor has left for practice and so Yuuri freely circles his bellybutton with his palm as he walks to the kitchen.

“What do you want to eat?” he asks lightly with his head in the fridge, rising on his toes to look on the upper shelves.

He jumps in surprise when he hears Victor answer from the entrance.

“I’ve already had breakfast thanks. I’m leaving, I’m already late, Yuri will be mad.”

Without thinking Yuuri answers back. “Sorry I thought you had left already…”

There is a silence before Victor speaks again. “Who were you talking to then?”

Yuuri gapes at the fridge for a few seconds as realization slowly sinks in. He finally manages to compose himself. “Makka.”

There is a chuckle and Victor comes to give Yuuri a peck on the lips before heading out. Once alone Yuuri looks down at the poodle lying on the carpet.

“And you, what do you want to eat?”

 

At night Yuuri is strangely at peace. In the dark when Victor is asleep, he lets the tip of his fingers roam over his belly and the sensitive skin of his chest, and he feels surprisingly appeased. It is like taking a moment for himself, although he is never really alone anymore. He wonders if the baby is moving its little arms and legs or if it is asleep. He tries to guess in which position it is, maybe it is upside down and does not even know it. His heart races when he imagines a baby boy or a baby girl.

When he feels all warm and cozy in bed next to Victor, Yuuri is calm and happy, knowing that the little thing in his belly is safe with him under the blanket. He has saved the ultrasound picture on his phone and looks at it for long minutes on his pillow in the middle of the night. He catches himself having ridiculous thoughts that make him shake his head and question his sanity, but he is convinced that it is a perfectly objective observation to say that the baby has inherited Victor’s nose.

 

Friday comes quicker than expected and Yuuri is extremely sick when he wakes up that morning. He spends so much time in the bathroom that they are almost late for the appointment. In the car he keeps his hands nervously pressed against his stomach and does not let go while they sit in the waiting room.

Victor brushes his arm fondly and whispers that it is only a matter of minutes until he can forget about it.

Part of Yuuri wants to tell Victor to shut up. Something inside him wants to scream at him that he is the worst at dealing with other people’s feelings and that he has no idea what he is going through. Yuuri knows he does not normally feels this kind of anger toward Victor, that it is only the stress and the exhaustion talking, and so he clenches his jaw tighter and waits for his turn silently.

A nurse calls his name and he is invited to undress and put on a greenish paper gown. He sits on the exam table in his gown and his socks while waiting for the doctor, balancing his legs under him and twisting his fingers together on his lap.

The relief Yuuri had been expecting is not there. He should have been relieved when he understood his disease could be cured. Maybe this morning he could have been glad to finally be on the last day of his sickness. When Victor parked the car in front of the hospital, there he could have felt relaxed that he would soon go home free of his burden. Or even in the waiting room, that would have been an appropriate moment to start and move on after these difficult few weeks of his life.

But even there in the exam room, he tries to convince himself that it is only a couple of hours until it is over and he can live a normal life again, but it does not bring him any comfort. The white walls, the neon lights, the aseptic smell of the hospital, the cheap material of his gown, everything makes him nauseous, everything feels wrong.

Yuuri looks up. Victor is sitting on a plastic chair against the opposite wall, nonchalantly slouched against the armrest, checking his phone. He does not really look nervous, if anything he looks slightly impatient. He seems perfectly oblivious to Yuuri’s distress, and Yuuri has never felt lonelier than he does in this five hundred room noisy hospital. He can feel his heart beat in his throat and every second he gets closer to throwing up again. The exam room suddenly feels far too small and he struggles to breathe evenly.

When the door opens and he catches a glimpse of a white blouse, Yuuri jumps down from the table, blurts that he needs to go to the bathroom, and runs out. He gasps for air as he jostles a group of nursing assistants in the hallway and throws himself between the closing doors of an elevator.

 

Over the past few weeks Victor has become used to seeing Yuuri rush to the nearest toilet, and so he barely looks up from his phone when the door slams shut behind him. It is only ten minutes later when the physician starts frowning that Victor gets up to check the bathroom.

He does not find Yuuri in any toilet stall on the whole floor. He takes the stairs two at a time to check the bathrooms on the upper floor but only manages to get screamed at when he accidentally rushes in the women’s bathroom. He asks the reception desk if they have seen Yuuri leave but no one remembers seeing a patient in the lobby.

Yuuri’s clothes, shoes and phone are still in the exam room and Victor pales as he fears Yuuri has had a dizzy spell somewhere in the hospital. The doctor informs the security guards and they have a service dog smell Yuuri’s belongings. They are organizing the search when the reception desk gets a call from the underground parking lot attendant.

 

Victor’s heart is torn between deep relief and increased worry when he finds Yuuri sitting on the ground next to their car. He is curled up on himself, awkwardly pulling at his too short gown to cover his legs. His socks are soaked and his knees are scratched. His body shakes as big tears run down his burning cheeks.

Victor hastily takes off his coat to wrap around Yuuri’s shoulders, and Yuuri cries even harder, hiding his face in his hands.

“I’m so sorry…” he says between two bursts of tears. “I’m sorry… I can’t…”

“It’s ok to be afraid, it’s ok,” Victor whispers as he brushes back Yuuri’s hair. “Nobody likes operations.”

Yuuri shakes his head vigorously and his lips tremble before he can speak again.

“I can’t kill it I… I can’t… I don’t want to…”

Victor stops for a second. He looks down and realizes how Yuuri’s hands are flat on his stomach and his knees drawn up to try and hide it. When Victor extends his hands to brush Yuuri’s forearm, Yuuri tenses and moves to remain out of reach.

Victor closes his eyes briefly to try and clear his mind, but it does nothing to help him understand what is happening.

“You… Yuuri, you… you don’t want to abort?”

Yuuri shakes his head again and sniffles loudly. His nose and cheeks are bright red and his lashes are heavy with tears.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs, “you can leave, I won’t ask anything from you.”

Just when Victor thought he could not feel more confused, he now adds disbelief to worry and confusion. “What?”

“You kept saying it’d soon be over and I’d be cured…” Yuuri stumbles, his lips as wet as his cheeks. “I know you don’t want it but I can’t kill it, I can't, I'm not strong enough.”

“Oh Yuuri…” Victor sits next to him and lifts him from the cold ground to cradle him on his lap. “All this time and you didn’t tell me…”

Yuuri sniffles again and hides his face in Victor’s shoulder. He knows it is over now, Victor will leave him and his monstrous body to live a normal life with someone else. He drools on his shirt and can barely breath at the thought that it is the last time Victor holds him close.

“You looked so worried,” Victor continues softly, “I felt guilty for putting you through this. I… I didn’t even really think about the baby I just… I thought you were scared and you would feel better if it was fixed quickly.”

Yuuri practically drowns in his own tears. He gasps for air and fights to form words as his jaw shakes.

“But I’ll… I’ll be a monster… A pregnant man…”

Victor kisses his forehead.

“You’re not a monster, Yuuri.”

“I’ll look so gross, what will the others say?” Yuuri sobs as he covers his face with his trembling fingers.

“You’ll be beautiful.”

 

Victor sits Yuuri in the car, fastens his seatbelt and arranges his coat over him so he will not get cold with only his gown. He runs back to the exam room to take Yuuri’s belongings and briefly apologizes to the doctor, saying he will call back soon to explain the situation.

 

Once at home Victor draws a hot bath for Yuuri, who is still hunched up on himself on the couch, tangled in Victor’s coat, and shaking like a leaf. Victor carefully manages to pull off Yuuri’s wet socks and untie his crumpled gown. He helps Yuuri into the bathroom and after a moment of hesitation he climbs in the bathtub behind him.

It takes a while for Yuuri to relax in the water. After trembling violently for several minutes, he slowly extends his legs and shyly unwraps his arms from around his waist. His muscles are sore with stress and his skin is still covered in goosebumps despite the steaming water. He lets his hands float over his stomach, watching his fingers move under the surface around the slight bump of his belly.

Victor washes Yuuri’s back gently, running a wet cloth down the nape of his neck until the tension in his shoulders softens and he lets his head fall back against Victor’s chest. They do not say a word.

When Yuuri’s breathing is finally even and he does not twitch every time Victor moves, Victor slowly brushes Yuuri’s sides with the tips of his fingers. So very carefully, he lays his hands on Yuuri’s waist, and Yuuri’s heart beats faster. He takes Victor’s hands and brings them over his swollen stomach. He gently presses them down until they are flat against his skin and places his own hands over Victor’s.

“I’m doing this,” Yuuri says, weakly but resolutely. “Are you with me?”

There is a moment of silence and Yuuri holds his breath. For a second he contemplates how quickly his priorities have changed without him realizing. His heart tightens in his chest, and he fears he has taken the wrong decision, without knowing exactly when he made his choice.

Victor kisses the back of his shoulder softly.

“We’re doing this together.”

  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you if you read all of this long chapter!
> 
> I'm very honored to say that Hawesome made art for this chapter and you can see it [here](https://mobile.twitter.com/haw3some/status/945756869724950528)! You can also find their Tumblr and more of their art [here](https://hawesomes-art.tumblr.com/)! This is the first time I get art for a fic and I can't even begin to explain how excited I am! Thank you Hawesome<3
> 
> Come and see me on [Tumbr](https://dontstopyurinow.tumblr.com/) :)


	2. Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your reactions to the first chapter, I really hope this second one comes up to your expectations. <3
> 
> This chapter was betaread by [LGFUADJJ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LGFUADJJ/pseuds/LGFUADJJ), thanks a lot for proofreading such a long chapter! <3

Yuuri’s fingers tremble above his keyboard as he stares at the screen with worried eyes. 

It is two days after his improvised escape from the hospital and, so far, Victor has let him rest quietly without asking questions. Yuuri knows it won’t last, but he takes every moment of peace he can have.

Lying in bed beside his husband, Yuuri just finished reading this forum post and it gives him chills down his spine. He should have known better than to try and find pregnancy information online. 

“It’s late Yuuri,” Victor says softly without looking up from his book.

Yuuri does not answer. Victor turns a page and extends his hand to brushes Yuuri’s hair absentmindedly.

“What are you looking at?” he asks. When Yuuri remains silent, Victor leans over to glance at the screen. He frowns and closes the laptop on Yuuri’s fingers.

“You don’t need to read this.”

“Some people have miscarriages in the second trimester, it could happen to me!”

“Why would it?”

“It could! What if something’s wrong and I don’t know it? It could already...”

Victor closes his book, puts it on the nightstand, and takes Yuuri’s laptop from his hands to put it away as well. He sneaks an arm behind Yuuri and pulls him to cradle him against his chest.

“Yuuri… We’re not doing things by half, this is serious. We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re safe.”

“And the baby?”  

“Everything, for both of you.”

Victor’s voice is deep and quiet and Yuuri can feel it vibrate in his chest. He curls up to rest his legs on Victor lap. He breathes slowly and finally calms down.

“I need to tell my mother,” he mutters. “I want her to know. I want to ask her things.”

“I can buy plane tickets tomorrow. How about in two weeks so we have a bit of time and we can make sure you’re fine and it’s alright for you to travel?”

Yuuri feels appeased that Victor did not suggest a simple phone call and understood that he wanted to see his family and talk to his mother in person. He nods gently and pulls the blanket over himself until he is almost completely hidden under it. He is warm against Victor’s chest and the sheet is soft against his skin.

“I’ll call them to ask if we can visit,” he murmurs as he closes his eyes.

Victor kisses the top of Yuuri’s head and turns off the bedside lamp. Yuuri is asleep in his arms before he can lie down properly.

 

Victor has to slightly push Yuuri before he accepts to go back to the hospital. Yuuri tries to compromise and suggests going to another clinic just to push back the moment he will have to go, but Victor insists it will be easier if they stick to the hospital close to their apartment, and deal with doctors who already know about his condition. 

Yuuri would love to avoid any other medical appointment and just spend the next few months eating for two on the couch. In his living room nobody can tell him that he should abort. He is safe, hunched up in the cushions with his blanket around him and Makkachin on his feet, and he wishes he could stay like that until the baby is ready to be born.

It is only when Victor gets serious after a couple of days that Yuuri considers showing up at the hospital again. 

“You’re my husband,” Victor says as he looks at Yuuri and Yuuri can see the worry in his eyes, “and… this baby is also my baby. I can’t let you both without medical supervision. Yuuri, I know you don’t like it, but please, do it for me?”

Yuuri mumbles something about running out again if they try to touch him and Victor promises that he will not let them and that they will change clinic if they do anything Yuuri does not like.

 

In his dusty office the physician waits and blinks behind his desk when Yuuri does not say anything. Victor managed to drag him into the doctor’s office, but Yuuri is still reluctant and is showing as much bad grace as he can. There is a mix of fear and anger in his chest that leads him not to trust this man again. He cannot bring himself to put his baby’s fate in the hand of the man who wanted to remove it like it was a tumor. 

“We’re keeping the baby,” Victor eventually says when Yuuri keeps glaring without a word. “Is it possible?”

The old man’s eyebrows rise high on his bald forehead and he turns to Yuuri again as to get confirmation. Yuuri pinches his lips in a guilty pout and nods.

“You want to take this pregnancy to term?”

“Yes,” Victor confirms.

“You want to have this baby?”

“We do.”

“Well I…” the man runs a hand over the top of his head and tousles sparse strands of white hair. “That’s unexpected. We have no way to tell you if you’ll be able to carry this baby until it’s old enough to be born safely.”

“I know I can,” Yuuri blurts eagerly. 

The doctor pauses. He looks at the couple in front of him and they both look very determined. He knows he probably should refuse this case. It would be safer. He did his job by trying to solve their problem, he warned them about the risks of their choice, he can now let them go to another hospital and sleep soundly at night. 

And yet he cannot help but think about the potential patrons’ donations and research subventions his unit will get if they are the firsts to document a male pregnancy and deliver a healthy baby from a man’s body. He looks up again, and the young man in front of him is stroking his stomach blithely, like so many women have done in this office before. 

“You’ll have to sign a waiver,” he finally says when Victor’s gaze becomes too heavy to hold. “The hospital is not responsible for your decision and cannot be held accountable if anything goes wrong during or after the pregnancy.”

Yuuri and Victor nod together. Yuuri knows nothing the physician will say can make him change his mind. Victor had been expecting this kind of speech, and knows they are just taking their first step to a true legal mess.

“We are well aware of that,” Victor says seriously. “Now, are you ready to take Yuuri’s case and do everything you can to help us?” 

Yuuri relaxes a bit when the doctor accepts, even if he repeats a couple of times that they will need to sign a waiver of liability for good measure.

They discuss schedule issues, organization, and insurance coverage. They open a new file for Yuuri, and he spends far too much time filling in the administrative forms he is given and answering the medical history questions he is asked. Victor does not seem to have any idea of what the medical history looks like on his side of the family beside the time he had to withdraw from the Russian junior championships after catching chicken pox. 

They are almost done when Yuuri apologizes and says he has to use the bathroom. The office door closes behind him and Victor’s face changes. His expression darkens and the doctor stops scribbling to look at him.

“Choose your team to monitor Yuuri,” Victor says coldly. “If you don’t mind I’d like you and them to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

“We’re already bound by medical confidentiality,” the doctor notes pointedly.

“You are, and that’s why the nursing assistants, the receptionists, and the janitor knew about Yuuri’s condition before he himself was told about it.”

The old man swallows uneasily. “Rare cases always attract attention.”

“I’d like it not to happen again. It would be a shame for your career if it did.”

The old man snickers. “With all due respect, Mr. Nikiforov, I personally doubt that you have such an influence.”

“I don’t,” Victor admits, “but my lawyer does, that’s probably why I pay him so much.”

Part of the reason why Victor is able to look at ease and confident in practically every public situation, is that he employs someone else to deal with any kind of trouble his career can bring him. He figured soon enough that he would rather spend his time on the ice than doing paperwork, and so whether it was doping suspicions or fraudulent sponsorship contracts during his competitive time, Victor always made sure to invest enough in the matter not to have anything else to do but appear in court and smile politely.

The physician winces bitterly. Victor’s traits soften and his shoulders drop slightly when he sighs.

“I just want the best for Yuuri,” he says more quietly, “we don’t need this kind of problems, it will already be difficult enough. Yuuri has been dealing with a lot of stress and if anything happens to him I just…”

There is a silence and the old man clears his throat.

“We can provide all the medical expertise and the accommodations we have, but we cannot do miracles. We cannot promise this baby will make it and we cannot guarantee the safety of the mo… the father.” 

Victor knows he should talk to Yuuri before taking any kind of decision, but he cannot help the words that come out at this moment.

“If anything goes wrong, at any point…” he says slowly, “save Yuuri.”

The physician looks at him in the eyes before nodding slowly and gathering the papers on his desk. “I need to make a few phone calls. I’ll call you when we’re ready.”

 

That evening Yuuri snuggles on the couch next to Victor. Victor does not look away from the TV but wraps an arm around his husband’s waist and gently pulls him closer. When Yuuri is comfortably settled Victor runs his hand under Yuuri’s shirt and places it flat on his swollen stomach. Yuuri quivers at the touch but Victor does not seem to notice. He casually keeps his hand there, still focused on the series. Yuuri rests his head on Victor’s shoulder. It has been months since he has last felt so relaxed.

 

Yuuri is still convinced he would be fine if he spent the rest of his pregnancy on the couch with a comforter and a mug of hot chocolate. He feels slightly light headed when he is presented to a team of five persons, hand-picked to watch his pregnancy. The old physician points at each of them to introduce them. A gynecologist, a urologist, two midwives, and a geneticist. Yuuri waves shyly, half hidden behind Victor’s coat like a child behind his mother’s legs. The midwives step forward first. They look pretty much alike and Yuuri wonders if they are twins. Their name tags read “Anna” and “Lena”.

“We have opposite shifts at the hospital,” the first one says, “so you can always reach one of us no matter the time of the day.”

“Or the night,” the second adds.

“Yeah,” they both nod.

Yuuri does not have time to blush before the geneticist shakes his hand feverishly.

“Your body’s a miracle,” he says fervently.

“I know, right?” Victor agrees.

“Do you know if there are other cases in your family?” he asks with wide eyes.

“I don’t think my dad has ever been pregnant,” Yuuri says blankly.

“Could you ask to be sure?”

Yuuri cannot answer because the urologist steps in and squints his eyes at him.

“Do you have a prostate?” he asks with concern.

“I…” Yuuri can feel the tip of his ears burn and knows Victor has heard the question too. “I think I do.”

The gynecologist is much more polite and reserved.

“Together we should be able to figure out what going on in your stomach,” she says with a little nod toward her colleague when she shakes Yuuri’s hand.

 

To his great relief, the first official appointment is easy for Yuuri. He is asked to relate everything he can remember about his first trimester of pregnancy, and Victor occasionally comments when he recalls something that could be interesting and that he forgot to mention. It seems that Victor remembers very precisely every single time Yuuri threw up, time, place and previous meal included. 

It however takes the team all the skills of persuasion they have to convince Yuuri to undergo tests for fetal genetic disorders. He is fine with blood works and ultrasounds, but even Victor pales when they ask to poke Yuuri’s stomach with a needle. Yuuri knows it is important to check for diseases that could hinder the development of the baby, but since they informed him on the risk of miscarriage, he shakes like a leaf whenever they talk about making any kind of appointment. The amount of information he is given quickly gets overwhelming, and he just wants to hide under his blanket and not let anyone touch his belly. He reluctantly gives in after a long talk with Lena, and clings to Victor the whole day of the procedure. He only partially relaxes when it is over and they can listen to the steady heartbeat of the baby, and Victor makes sure to give him quiet time once they are back at home.

 

On the third week of July Yuuri is scheduled for an ultrasound, and neither he or Victor can hide their enthusiasm. Yuuri cannot wait to see this tiny baby again, this time without the surprise and the anxiety of his first appointment. He gasps with Victor when they see the white form on the monitor and smiles blissfully when the baby turns and stretches its legs. Every little move on the screen makes Yuuri’s heart beat faster. He could watch this for hours. 

The technician takes several measures and enough screenshots to cover their fridge without using the same picture twice, and eventually gives Yuuri a tissue to wipe the conductive gel off his belly. She cleans her probe and hums happily. 

"Both of you are doing great,” she says to Yuuri. He is glowing with happiness when she continues: “All the measures are in the norms, she's perfectly healthy." 

Victor's traits distort in an ugly wince and he hides his face in Yuuri's shoulder. The technician cringes badly. 

"Oh no, you didn't know? It’s written in your file with the tests results, I thought you knew…”

Yuuri gently brushes Victor's hair as he sobs warm tears of joy on his shirt.

"No, it's ok, we didn't know but thanks for telling us."

 

Yuuri is allowed to travel and his family is excited to hear that he will be visiting soon. Victor has booked last minute business class tickets and Yuuri tries not to think about the price of their improvised trip. He really needs to see his family, and after his fourth trip to the toilets on the plane, he is secretly relieved that he does not have to wiggle between the rows of the economy class every time he stands up.

Hiroko welcomes them warmly, but Yuuri knows his mother is anxious since they gave such a short notice for their visit. He wants to comfort her but he has decided with Victor that they would explain their situation after dinner, when the clients have left the inn and the Katsuki family is done with the chores of the day. Yuuri naps through the end of the afternoon in his old bedroom and Victor dozes off with him, both tired by their flight and stressed by the announcement they have to make. 

When they wake up they are facing each other, their legs tangled together and Yuuri nested in Victor's arms. Yuuri would like to stay like that forever. It feels safe for his little bump and Victor is keeping him warm and comfy. He groans when he understands he will have to move very soon to use the bathroom. Victor has a hard time emerging from sleep, and Yuuri has to peel his arms from around him to be able to get up. 

When Victor manages to remember where he is and why he is there, his stress comes back. The Katsuki have always been very nice to him and have accepted him in their family from the very first day, but they could reproach him to put Yuuri’s health at risk, and resent him for doing this to him and supporting him with his decision to keep the baby.

When Yuuri comes back in the room and calls for dinner, Victor’s smile does not let anything shine through. 

 

Hiroko happily serves Yuuri a second large bowl of pork cutlet and Victor is glad both Yuuri and the baby eat to their hearts’ content.

When the dessert tray arrives, Yuuri puts down his chopsticks and clears his throat. Victor gently brushes the small of his back to encourage him.

“I’m sorry but Victor and I are not visiting just to see you,” Yuuri says with a small voice as he looks down at his knees. “We have something to tell you. I hope you will understand.”

Hiroko puts down her chopsticks as well. “Yuuri…” she breathes, “you know you can tell us anything.”

And then it is like a dam has broken inside Yuuri. For several minutes he explains everything that has happened to him over the past three months, keeping his eyes down on his plate and barely stopping to breath between his sentences. Victor nods and caresses Yuuri’s forearm as everybody listens without a word.

“… so now I have regular control visits at the hospital,” he eventually finishes. “And erm… I’m due on the 6th of January and… it’s a girl.”

He got caught in his story and cannot repress a smile at the last words, but he is strangely brought back to reality when he looks up and sees his parents and his sisters gaping at him. Nobody moves and Victor is already tensing, ready to step in between Yuuri and any form of critic or rejection.

Very slowly Toshiya takes his wife’s hand. “Honey… We’re having a granddaughter.”

Hiroko presses his hand tenderly in return. “We are.”

Mari shakes her head. “She’ll be spoiled,” she says with a smile. 

Yuuri slumps against Victor in relief. Victor kisses his forehead just when Mari adds: “Congratulations you two.”

When the surprise has passed, the Katsuki have asked all the questions they could think of, and everybody has touched Yuuri’s belly, they stand up to clear the table. When Yuuri stays, his mother does too, and the others gather the dishes to leave them alone.

Yuuri looks down at his crossed legs. He is too ashamed to look in his mother’s eyes. He knows it was foolish to decide to keep the baby, and plain ridiculous to think he will be able to raise it. His mother waits patiently for him to be ready to talk. When he clenches his fists on his lap, she takes his hand and rubs his fingers gently with her thumb.

“I… They planned an abortion but I…” Yuuri begins abruptly.

He pinches his lips to try and hide how they tremble. His eyes water and he cannot manage to finish his sentence. He just shakes his head and looks down as he covers his stomach with his hands. 

His mother takes him in her arms and he lets himself melt against her shoulders. 

“I know Yuuri, I know.”

“But now I… I have no idea… I know nothing I…”

“Sssh… Yuuri… Nobody is ever ready for this.”

“What if… Maybe I should have…”

Hiroko tightens her embrace, and Yuuri feels likes this was worth all the hours of flight in the world.

“Yuuri, you did what felt right to you and that’s the only thing that matters.”

 

In the kitchen Victor drops a pile of bowls in the sink and Toshiya comes up next to him.

"That will be quite a change,” he says calmly.

"I know,” Victor answers.

"Yuuri will need you." 

"I'll be there. I’ll make sure everything goes well and Yuuri has the baby safely.”

"Victor… You’ll need to be there after as well,” Toshiya says seriously. “You’ll have to be there when the baby cries at night and Yuuri needs to sleep. Be there when she goes to kindergarten for the first time and he doesn’t want to let her go. And when she starts talking back to her parents and he doesn’t know what to say. When she's sick or when she's sad, and even when you're not proud of her and you have to scold her."

Victor opens his mouth but closes it again without saying a word. Hearing all of this out loud is not as easy as he thought it would.

Of course he knows life does not stop the day his daughter is born, it is barely the beginning, but it seems so far and so abstract that he has done his best not to think about it. Every time he does think about it, he cannot do anything but admit that he has absolutely no idea what to do with a baby. 

Over the years he has learned to look confident in every situation, but deep down he is terrified he will not be able to do the right thing once his daughter is in his arms and he has to take care of her. He had always thought he would have to go through a long adoption process that would give him time to get ready, and now he is only six months away from holding his newborn. He figures he does not need a Ph.D. to know how to change a diaper, but he doubts he can learn in books how to make a child happy and raise her to be a good person. 

And there is Yuuri, who is probably even more lost than Victor is, and goes through all of it without complaining. Every day is a new challenge and any change could threaten his health, and yet he quietly accepts it and loves his bump more and more every morning. Victor hopes his support will be enough, but it looks derisory compared to the efforts Yuuri is providing. 

Toshiya observes his inner reflection silently.

“Just promise that you’ll try your best,” he says to Victor with a warm smile, “Yuuri needs you.”

 

They stay a week in Japan and Yuuri gets pampered by everybody. He enjoys dips in the temperate bath of the hot springs to relax his aching body. He frequently visits the kitchen to get a plate of whatever he can find, and Mari shakes her head when he throws up on her feet after she opens a box of natto. Nobody dares to wake him up when he takes a nap after almost every meal.

They see the Nishigori for dinner, and Victor wrestles with the triplets to prevent them from posting a picture of Yuuri with his T-shirt rolling up his belly and revealing his squishy love handles. Yuuri has decided not to let Yuuko know about his condition to make sure the triplets would not hear about it. Surely she will have questions when she sees him with a child that looks just like he used to when they grew up together, but Yuuri figures he will have had time to prepare his answers and tell her the truth when he is ready to.

His parents and sister make Yuuri promise to Skype every week to update on his bump’s progress, and they discuss with Victor to visit Russia as soon as the baby is born.

Yuuri feels much better on the way back than he did when flying to Japan. He sleeps through the flight and looks so peaceful that Victor is sorry to wake him up for a food tray. 

 

It is already the end of July when Yuuri receives a large package he does not remember ordering while Victor is at the rink. It is from a bookstore and so Yuuri does not bother waiting for Victor before opening it. He curiously goes through the colorful book covers.

_ "What to expect when your wife is expecting"  _

Yuuri sighs lightly. Probably Victor did not find “What to expect when your husband is expecting”.

_ “The big book of baby names” _

He smiles and leaves through the thick volume. “Genevieve, Gertrude, Ginevra…” He winces and puts the book down. He wonders if Victor would be fine with a Japanese name. He puts his hands in the box again and takes out all the other books.

_ “Becoming a father” _

_ “Dude, you're gonna be a dad!”  _

_ “Oh boy, you're having a girl”  _

_ “Be the dad she needs you to be” _

Yuuri’s heart tightens and he feels all warm. He does not remember seeing Victor order these, but just thinking about him doing it makes him melt with affection. 

He takes “ _ Oh boy, you’re having a girl” _ and settles on the couch to read it while he waits for Victor to come home.

 

Victor pities Yuuri and his jeans that will not close at the waist anymore, and takes him to a fancy maternity store despite his protests. Yuuri argues that he can just buy sweatpants one or two size bigger than usual and he will be fine, but Victor points out that Yuuri is wearing one of his T-shirts, and that he will not let his husband walk around in sweatpants for five months. 

Yuuri struggles to find a top that will hide his bump without making him suffocate in the heat of the summer. Most of his shirts and T-shirts are fitted, the ones that are not still stretch around his waist, and Yuuri becomes desperate that he will not find anything that does not make him look like he drank too much beer over the past few years. Victor finds an oversized promotional T-shirt with an awful pattern printed on the front. It is ugly, but the lettering attract the eye away from Yuuri’s belly, and the multiple colors and lines hide the shape of it. It will be enough to go outside without having people look at him. 

The store is white and immaculate. There are pastel pink and soft blue ribbons on the walls and one of the rare clients already in is wearing 3 inches high heels despite being heavily pregnant. Yuuri stops by the entrance to double check a price tag on a stroller. 

“Yuuri, we’ll come back later for a stroller, we still have time for that.”

“I know but look, they made a mistake…”

Before Victor can look they are interrupted by a tiny sales assistant. She’s wearing a uniform and a measuring tape around her neck.

"Good afternoon, how can I help you? Are you looking for a gift? How far along is she?” 

Yuuri briefly closes his eyes. He knows he will need to come back several times, and every time he will be showing more. Plus, the whole point of going to the store instead of shopping online is to be able to try things on, and he cannot justify trying on a pair of pants if he says it is for a gift. He figures the sales assistant will understand he is pregnant and will probably just think he's a rather masculine woman. 

"No it's for me,” he says softly. “I need pants. And shirts. And underwear. I’m 18 weeks along."

Victor cannot help but be more amazed every day by Yuuri’s courage and dedication. If he could he would hug him every hour and tell him how proud of him he his. 

There is a brief spark of surprise in the sales assistant’s eyes but she manages to stay professional. 

Yuuri tries on several pairs of pants that he'll be able to wear even in the 9th month. He is surprised to see how well they fit his thighs, butt and belly. He would probably wear these even if he was not pregnant to be honest. 

At one point he finds a dress in the clothes Victor has picked for him and hung in the changing room. He hesitates but decides to try it on and simply not open the curtain if he does not like it. 

It fits perfectly and it is extremely comfortable. It is flowy, and stretchy, and the fabric is soft on his skin. The waist is fitted just above his belly and the skirt leaves free room for his bump. He cannot help but call Victor to see.

“I knew you’d like it,” Victor says when he pops his head in the changing room. He blushes. “You look amazing.”

“It’s nice… not to wear pants,” Yuuri admits as he does a little turn and the dress flies around his thighs.

At the end of the afternoon the rack of clothes in front of the changing room is bending under the weight of the hangers. They got slightly carried away, and after the pants Yuuri got to try on T-shirts, sweaters, cardigans, and coats. Victor insists they need to be ready for the winter and shoves a pair of knitted thigh high socks in Yuuri’s hands. 

Only a few items get discarded because they do not fit or turn out to be unflattering. Yuuri hops clumsily to put back on the jeans he came with, and hears the sales assistant through the curtain. 

"So, which ones are we keeping?"

Victor chuckles and Yuuri shakes his head knowingly.

"We'll take everything," Victor answers. “Can you fold and bag it all please?”

 

Yuuri feels much better once he starts wearing clothes that fit. He does not have to worry about his waistband digging in his hips or his shirt rolling up his stomach anymore, and it feels very liberating. He can barely believe that he went so far in his pregnancy with his old jeans and cannot imagine his life without this elastic band thingy around the waist anymore. 

He is hanging around in his new pants when he sees Victor at the kitchen table, with a notebook and his mobile next to his laptop. He bends over his shoulder to look at the screen.

“Are you looking at apartments?”

Victor blinks at him. “We need to move out?”

“Why?”

“We only have one bedroom,” Victor says with a slight frown.

Yuuri tenses. He was so obsessed with his belly he did not even think about what would happen next. Victor’s apartment is not small but there’s no room for a baby. 

“But your apartment…”

Victor shrugs. “I chose this place when I was alone with Makka, and at that time I practically lived at the rink. I already thought we’d move out when you decided to move in with me to be honest.”

Yuuri feels terrible to make Victor move out of his own place. He already felt embarrassed when he moved in and Victor refused to let him pay his half of the rent, claiming they were married and not roommates. 

Yuuri glances at the screen again. He quivers at the numbers he sees on the website.

“You’re buying? Not renting?”

Victor has a slight tilt of the head. “If we find something really nice, why not?”

Yuuri shifts awkwardly on his feet. The idea of Victor spending so much money for him makes him light headed. Victor pushes his chair away from the table and pulls Yuuri in his lap.

“It’s not that big of a deal you know,” he whispers. “Even if I hadn’t met you, I’d probably have bought a place for myself at one point. Now I’m glad I can do it with you.” He pauses and slips his hands under Yuuri’s shirt to gently caress his stomach. “I just thought it would be nice to have our own place, for the three of us.”

Yuuri practically purrs at the touch on his belly and Victor’s words make his mind fuzzy with contentment. It always feels so soft and reassuring when Victor’s hands cover his bump like he is protecting it. Yuuri sighs in resignation. He knows he will accept anything as long as it is for the baby, he is well aware that he has lost his ability to make rational choices a few weeks ago. He slides his finger on the touchpad of the laptop and clicks on the first apartment picture.

“How about this one?”

 

Victor does not have the heart or the authority to completely forbid Yuuri to step on the ice. High-intensity activities are not recommended and so Yuuri forgets the jumps and the spins, and glides lazily around the other skaters, changing edges and twizzling slowly when he gets bored. He enjoys the smooth rhythm and gets lost in his thoughts when he follows the barrier and draws large circles on the ice with his blades. Sometimes Yuri groans that Yuuri is making him sick turning around him like that. Yakov also gets tired of seeing Victor let his student slack off, especially when Victor skates with him and they turn hand in hand like they are on a romantic date during a public shift at the rink. 

"Katsuki are you training for speed skating? Victor stop that, you'll dig a track in the ice!" 

 

Yuuri’s fascination for his belly grows stronger every day. It now shows rather obviously under his T-shirt.

“Everybody thinks I’m fat,” he pouts one particularly hot afternoon, where Victor only wears a tank top but he himself hides behind a large T-shirt

“I don’t think you’re fat,” Victor says happily.

Yuuri crawls on the couch to straddle Victor’s legs and sit on his lap, facing him. He pinches his lips harder and exaggerates his pout.

“You say that but you haven’t touched me in weeks.”

Victor’s smile fades. They have not had an intimate moment besides cuddles since they learned about Yuuri’s pregnancy. At first Victor told himself that he was giving Yuuri time to get over the news of his condition, and that Yuuri would himself decide when he was ready for intimacy again, but days passed and none of them made a move. Yuuri often sleeps nested against Victor despite the heat of the summer, and they sometimes nap together all tangled on the couch, but that’s about it. 

The truth is that Victor still remembers how Yuuri twitched to avoid his hand the day he escaped the hospital. How Yuuri had suddenly become protective of his belly and mistrustful even toward his husband.

Victor’s worried thoughts are interrupted by Yuuri, who has lifted his T-shirt under his chin and is poking the bump between his hips.

“Am I turning you off that bad?” he mumbles shamefully.

Victor shakes his head and smiles. He gives Yuuri a peck on the lips.

“I didn’t want to rush you. To be honest I… I think I’m afraid to do something you’ll not like, or to hurt you or I don’t know,” he shrugs.

“Hurt me? But how?” Yuuri laughs. “You’re not that big you know…”

Victor exaggerates an offended gasp, and Yuuri knows he is only half joking. 

“You can’t make me more pregnant than I already am at least.”

Victor laughs as well. “What if we get twins because of that?”

“That’s not how it works…” Yuuri chuckles, and after a second he bends to whisper in Victor’s ear: “But I think I like the idea.”

Something sparks in Victor’s brain. He pushes Yuuri slightly to look at him in the eyes and see if he is serious, and Yuuri has a side smile that is everything but innocent. Yuuri’s lips brush Victor’s neck when he murmurs against his skin.

“Just thinking that you made me pregnant…” He stops to leave a love bite under Victor’s jaw. “And then imagining that you could fill me even more…”

Victor’s heart beats far too fast when Yuuri kisses him ardently and his lips tell all the words he did not say out loud. Yuuri rolls his hips on his laps and cannot make his arousal any clearer. Victor is still not sure he really understands what is happening but he will not leave Yuuri waiting.

Sneaking his hands under Yuuri’s shirt, Victor holds him close and lets him wrap his legs around his waist when he stands up and carries him to the bedroom. 

On the mattress Yuuri is already flushed. He wiggles to take off his clothes and soon lies naked on the sheets, sprawled and flustered. 

The sight of Yuuri’s body, round and glowing, and the feeling of his warm skin under his fingertips make Victor impossibly hard. There is something in seeing Yuuri’s swollen stomach that wakes primal desires in his mind. Knowing he was the one who made Yuuri pregnant and filled his belly so well it is stretched leaves Victor aching with need. He feels like he cannot get undressed quickly enough.

Victor kneels between Yuuri’s legs and leans over him to kiss his collarbones. He graces every inch of his smooth skin, pinches his nipples between his lips and sucks gently. 

Yuuri moans loudly. His chest becomes more sensitive every day and Victor’s touch gives him goosebumps. 

Victor follows the curvy line of Yuuri’s waist and finally places his hands flat around his belly button. He kisses down his hip bones and Yuuri whines when he does not stop between his legs but resumes his adoration down his thigh, behind his knee and his calf, until he can peck his ankle and the top of his foot. 

There Victor stops a moment to look at Yuuri again, and he watches him close his eyes and smile in contentment when Victor slowly massages the sole of his foot with his thumbs.

Yuuri soon gets impatient and sits up to bring Victor close to him again. He runs his fingers in Victor’s hair and shudders when Victor grinds against him and their dicks rub and press on his lower stomach.

“Are you sure?”

Yuuri nods eagerly and reaches in the nightstand drawer. When Victor extends his hand to take the tiny bottle, Yuuri messily drizzles lube on his fingers and it drops on his stomach. Victor cannot help but shake his head and smile at his eagerness. He slowly, carefully works Yuuri open and Yuuri wiggles to get more of it.

“I didn’t know you were so deprived,” Victor smiles against Yuuri’s neck. 

Yuuri is red and panting, and his eyes are only half open. “Make me pregnant with twins,” he begs in a breath. “Fuck triplets in my belly.”

“Yuuri…” Victor breathes in awe. 

“Please!”

“I’ll put a whole litter inside you, fill you until you’re all full and round.”

Yuuri closes his eyes and moans in satisfaction.

Victor keeps kissing and licking Yuuri’s collarbones when he pushes inside him and he feels his body tense. Yuuri quivers and Victor feels the tips of his fingers dig in his back. He kisses up Yuuri’s neck and jaw until he is facing him and he can rest his forehead against his. Yuuri’s eyes flutter open. His cheeks are bright pink, his lips wet, and Victor can feel his heart beat against his chest.

“More,” Yuuri mutters, and Victor pulls out and thrusts back in slowly, enjoying every little sound that comes out of Yuuri’s lips.

Victor repeats his move and speeds up when Yuuri arches his back. There is something incredibly beautiful in the blush that covers his body and the way he abandons himself to Victor’s touch. He shivers with every caress, whimpers with every thrust of Victor’s hips, and Victor just wants to give him everything he has and more.

Yuuri gasps and clings on Victor’s back. Victor keeps pushing deeper and Yuuri slides his hands up Victor’s shoulders blades to run his fingers in his hair. Yuuri lets out strangled moans and desperately tries to catch his breath while covering Victor’s neck in kisses and love bites. Victor feels so big inside him, stretching him until he cannot think about anything else, pushing in his already round belly until his whole length is buried in, and Yuuri feels drunk with pleasure.

Yuuri’s body spasms and Victor feels him grab a handful of his hair and pull slightly. With a last thrust, Victor spills deep inside Yuuri. When Victor twitches inside him and stays there, keeping his seeds in his belly and filling him completely, Yuuri comes all over himself with a broken cry.

Victor lies next to Yuuri and rests his head on his chest.

“Sorry about that…” Yuuri mutters after a moment, caressing Victor’s hair pensively. 

“It’s ok, I was just surprised.”

“You know I was thinking…”

Victor hums softly.

“Eleven weeks before my first appointment... I’m pretty sure we made this baby at the worlds, the night of the exhibition.”

Victor recalls a night in a small hotel room in Helsinki. He remembers picking up his sweatpants hastily in the middle of the night to answer insistent knocks at the door, and opening to see Jean-Jacques Leroy wearing moose print pajamas and complaining about loud obscene noises that he heard through the walls and kept him and Isabella awake.

“We should ask JJ to be the godfather,” Victor says with a smile.

Yuuri stops brushing Victor’s hair. For a second he pictures his daughter with a tribal tattoo of her initials on her lower back. “Over my dead body.”

“We didn’t do anything exceptional that night,” Victor notes.

“I know, but I’m sure that’s when I got pregnant. I feel it, and the dates match.”

“Are we going to have a baby every time you win a gold medal?”

“You’re mad because it’s a better prize than all of your gold medals combined.”

Victor chuckles and kisses Yuuri’s belly. “It is.”

 

It’s a long summer night and they are fanning themselves in front of the TV when Yuuri sits up and places his hands on his stomach. Victor tenses and stands up.

“Are you alright? Does it hurt?”

He has already taken out his phone and is dialing the first midwife when Yuuri stops him.

“There are bubbles in my belly,” he says slowly.

“Bubbles?” Victor repeats. “Are you feeling sick?”

Yuuri smiles softly. “No... I think I can feel it move. Inside me.”

Victor blinks. He falls to his knees and Yuuri removes his hands so Victor can replace them with his. He waits but after a minute he has a small disappointed sigh. 

“I can’t feel anything.”

Yuuri takes Victor’s hands. “It’s just too early,” he says, and he kisses Victor’s fingers gently. “In a few weeks you will.”

Yuuri already did not get a lot of sleep during the night, and now he catches himself staying awake in the dark and focusing on the little movements inside his belly for hours. 

 

One August afternoon Yuuri gets distracted at the rink, and lets his skate touch the barrier as he looks at his husband above his shoulder. He falls clumsily on his butt and has a painful wince at the shock. He does not have time to get over his surprise before Victor scoops him up and carries him off the ice. Yuri and Yakov stare in confusion when Victor talks about taking Yuuri to the hospital. Yuri rubs his own knees that are purple with bruises and wonders why the katsudon suddenly cannot handle a minor fall after failing his jumps for twenty-six years.

Yuuri insists he is fine but Victor is already calling the midwife, and they are in the car before Yuuri can assure that he will not even get a bruise. Once at the hospital front desk, Victor describes Yuuri’s little slip as a “Figure skating accident” and Yuuri is pushed in a wheelchair and rushed to the ER. 

“I tripped on my own skates, grabbed the barrier, and slowly fell on my butt, that’s about it,” Yuuri sighs when Lena storms in the exams room fearing the worst. 

“I thought you could skate?” she asks as she raises an eyebrow.

“Me too.”

Lena checks Yuuri’s blood pressure and feels his abdomen lengthily. It is only when she does an ultrasound to listen to the baby’s heartbeat and Yuuri sees Victor’s eyes shine that he understands.

“You just wanted to see the baby, didn’t you?” he mumbles at Victor.

Victor does not even blush. “The last time was two weeks ago! You get to feel her move and be with her all the time but I don’t.”

 

Yuuri gets used to the regular hospital visits he has to do.  He notes every sign of nausea and every little thing that happens in his belly, whether it is cramp or baby movements. He gets to talk about how he feels during his appointments and brings up whatever goes through his mind. Sometimes Anna asks Victor to leave the room so Yuuri can talk more freely. At first Yuuri does not really see what he could tell her that he wouldn’t want Victor to know, until the day he hears himself blurt “I’ve not pooped in like two weeks, help me.” and “Victor still hasn’t read the chapter about premature delivery, what if it happens and he doesn’t know what to do?” 

 

“Victor,” Yuuri whispers one night as they are falling asleep. Victor hums weakly and Yuuri takes his hand to put it on his stomach.

Victor frowns in his pillow but then has the biggest smile. He blinks and sits up to turns on the light before placing both of his hands on Yuuri’s belly.

“I felt that,” he breathes blissfully.

“Of course you felt it,” Yuuri chuckles. “She’s throwing a party in my stomach.”

“I wonder where she learned how to dance…” Victor teases as he moves his hands on Yuuri’s skin.

Yuuri nods off before Victor gets tired of feeling the little movements under his palms.

 

At twenty-two weeks the baby weighs just over a pound, and Yuuri’s bump is now clearly noticeable if he does not wear an extra large sweater.

“We’ll have to tell the team,” Yuuri says one day as he watches Victor rub his belly with moisturizing body butter. Sometimes it tickles on his sides, but Victor has been doing a very good job at following the prenatal massage instructions he read, and Yuuri never misses an occasion to let him practice on his stomach. “You still go to the rink every day and we live only two blocks away,” he adds, “I can’t stop showing up without explanation and come back four months later with a baby.”

Victor nods. There is only so much weird things Yakov can accept without questions, and Yuri keeps asking about Yuuri when Victor comes to the rink alone, as if Victor kept Yuuri locked up in their apartment, when he is actually taking a two-hour nap on the couch with Makkachin.

“What about Georgi?” Victor asks as he looks at Yuuri, without taking his hands off his belly. Georgi has retired a year after Victor and gives a few lessons at the rink until he finds inspiration for a new career.

“He still sees me at the rink when he has the morning class.”

“Otabek?”

“I don’t remember seeing Yuri without him since we got married. I think they accidentally glued their hands together last year and they’re too ashamed to get help.”

Victor nods again.

“What about the media when the baby is born?” Yuuri asks with concern.

“We’ll try not to give them pictures of your belly and they’ll think we adopted.”

“And what when she’s born with silver hair?”

Yuuri’s heart swells at the thought. He knows it is practically impossible considering that no one is blond in his side of the family, but then again, his pregnancy does not really fit in the usual statistics. 

“They’ll think we paid a surrogate,” Victor says with a light shrug. “Nobody will ever think you’re pregnant if you don’t explicitly tell them.”

 

The team grumbles when Victor insists to see them all in the locker room, even Lilia and Yakov. Yuri drags his skates to the bench and mumbles something about Victor being retired but still coming to the rink just to annoy him. Yuuri tries to calm down the little group by talking first.

"So… Some of you may have noticed that for a few months I've stopped training like I used to."

Yakov grunts in disapproval but Georgi and Mila nod in encouragement. 

"I will not compete next season,” Yuuri declares. 

The team gasps.

"You're retiring?" 

"Victor!"

"Fuck you Katsudon!" 

"Yuuri, are you alright?" 

Yuuri waves his hands in front of him to try and silence them.

"I've not been feeling very good lately so I went to the hospital and they found something."

"If you die I'll kill you!" 

"Yuri Plisetsky!" 

Yuuri clears his throat again. "I have a condition that means that some of my internal organs are... Female organs.” Nobody moves and so he shrugs awkwardly. “But I'm fine, there's no health problem related to that, I wouldn't even know if it wasn't for Victor." 

Victor scratches the bridge of his nose sheepishly. He looks through the window and then at the ceiling and pinches his lips. Yuuri watches him curiously. Catching Victor in a moment of embarrassment is quite a rare thing, especially when he his in his own rink with his own teammates. He blushes and Yuuri cannot remember the last time he saw Victor being shy. They have agreed he would be doing this part of the talk and so Yuuri waits for him to find the right words.

"Sometimes,” he begins hesitantly, “when two people love each other a lot they... they cuddle very hard and erm… if one of the two has a uterus, sometimes…”

"Spit it, old man!" Yuri shouts impatiently.

Yuuri turns to show his profile and pulls on his shirt so it stretches around his belly. 

"You're fat!" Yuri adds, and Yuuri sees Lilia nod in approval.

"Yuuri's not fat,” Victor says, slightly relieved that Yuuri is helping him announce it. “He's pregnant."

Everybody stops to look at Yuuri's swollen stomach. His figure is now far from what it was during the last competition. His abs, usually flat and toned, have relaxed to accommodate his baby bump. His waist is not as defined anymore and his hips have widened. As if was not enough to convince the team, Yuuri lovingly rests one hand above his belly button and gently brushes under his bump with the other in a very characteristic gesture. 

Yuri falls backwards off the bench before Otabek can catch him. He curls up on himself on the ground and everybody worries he has hurt himself, until he catches his breath and laughs out loud. He is rolling on the floor laughing and his eyes are tearing up.

“Oh my God Beka they… they fucked so hard they knocked up the katsudon… I can’t fucking believe it…”

Mila and Georgi whisper quickly and Lilia and Yakov look at each other. Yuri struggles to breathe.

“Victor there’s only one hole how can you fuck up that bad?… Oh Beka I’m fucking dead.”

Yakov has turned a surprising shade of purple and Lilia is so tense she looks like a scarecrow on a stick. 

“That’s my fault,” Yakov eventually says as he slowly shakes his head in consternation. “I never gave him the talk.”

Victor’s cheeks are bright red and Yuuri realizes he might be less uncomfortable than his husband. 

"When are you due?" Lilia asks, half curious, half disgusted. 

"Early January."

Mila cannot stop looking at Yuuri’s stomach. She leans toward him and mutters: “Yuuri erm how… How will it… come out?”

She makes a very evocative gesture with her hands toward her crotch, and Yuuri pales just thinking about trying to push this baby out of any hole of his inadequate body.

“A C-section. I’m having a C-section. I don’t have… What’s needed to deliver it naturally.”

“Oh, right,” Mila whispers in fascination.

Georgi and Otabek give Victor manly pats on the back, strange wordless congratulations for his working reproductive system, and virile wishes of good luck for his new family.

Yuri suddenly stops laughing and sits up.

“Oh wait, is this real?” he asks as his eyes widen. Yuuri nods and when Yuri looks at the others he realizes he is the only one who did not take the news seriously. “Oh shit the old man is reproducing,” he whispers in realization. “That’s fucking gross. Beka, thirteen years before Nikiforov skates in Juniors again.”

“We don’t know if she will skate, but if she does her Bielmann will be better than yours,” Yuuri affirms confidently.

“It’s a girl!” Georgi cries before blowing his nose very loudly.

“How do two men make a girl?” Yuri blurts, his eyes squinted and eyebrows still furrowed in disbelief. 

Yuuri recalls a particularly lengthy explanation by the geneticist and only remembers that he had to leave the room twice to go to the bathroom, and contemplated buying a sandwich at the hospital cafeteria during the whole second half of the speech.

“From what I understood, that’s Yuuri’s fault,” Victor says lightly.

The team members leave after a few confused minutes and only Yuri and Otabek stay. Yuri stands beside Yuuri uncomfortably. He taps his fingers on his thighs in an impatient reflex. Otabek gently pushes him toward Yuuri with his elbow and Yuri grunts. He mutters something under his breath and Yuuri does not understand.

“I’m sorry?”

Yuri hides behind his hair. “Can I touch it?” he repeats louder without looking up.

Yuuri nods happily. Yuri bends and extends his arm until he can poke Yuuri’s belly with the tip of his index finger. He gently prods the bump a couple of times and then, so very slowly, places his hand flat on Yuuri’s skin. After a second he looks up at Yuuri with wide eyes. Before he can find words, he twitches in surprise and quickly pulls his hand back. Yuuri chuckles. He has felt the little kick under Yuri’s palm.

“She high-fived you, she likes you already.”

Yuri’s face is half hidden behind his hair but it is a clear blush that blooms on his left cheek. He shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets.

“That’s still gross.”

When they walk out of the rink, Yuuri holds the door as Yuri and Otabek lag behind. Yuri looks slightly pissed and whispers quickly at Otabek.

“Beka, you do you, but I’m not taking birth control.”

 

Victor gets in touch with a real estate agent. The first apartment they visit is particularly plain and boring. It has two bedrooms, but that's about it. The second one is downright unsanitary, and Victor quickly pushes Yuuri out for fear he will breathe mold and funguses. Yuuri gets tired of standing in empty apartments while the real estate agent tries to explain how great this 6 th -floor-without-lift place or this I-just-heard-the-neighbor-sneeze duplex are. During a visit where the agent elaborates lengthily on how they can create a second bedroom by dividing the living room and destroying the bathroom, Yuuri gets dizzy and has to lie down a few minutes. From that point Victor does the visits alone.

 

Early September Victor sees Yuuri slumped on the bench at the rink, looking at the untied shoelaces of his skates with a sad pout. Victor kneels at his feet and takes the shoelaces to tie them, but Yuuri shakes his head.

“They’re too tight,” he murmurs.

Victor raises his eyebrows. “Just like that? Overnight?”

“Not really but.. my feet will hurt if I skate like that now.”

Victor sits next to him. “Maybe it’s time to get off the ice for a few months?”

Yuuri cannot repress a small sigh. To be fair, he saw it coming. The slight swelling of his legs and feet is just as closely monitored as his weight and the size of his belly. Over the past weeks he had reduced his time on the ice to a few minutes a day, only to glide slowly when Yuri and Mila were warming up, but he still had not considered stopping completely. He did not expect it so soon, and he used to spend so much time at the rink that he does not know what he will do if he has to wait for Victor at home all day long. 

“To be honest, I’d feel better if you didn’t go on the ice with the baby now…” Victor says softly. “Your balance has changed, and Yuri keeps flubbing his flip, I’d rather not see you close to him when he fails his landing and kicks the barrier with his blades.”

Yuuri has a weak smile. He takes off his skates and puts his sneakers back on. Victor leans to kiss him. 

“It’s only a few months, and... it’s worth it?” he says with a small smile.

“I hope so,” Yuuri mumbles when he puts his skates back in his sport bag.

Yuuri watches Victor and Yuri for the rest of the session. When they take a break, Yuri skates up to him at the barrier.

“You’ll stop coming?” he asks abruptly.

“I’ll come with Victor as long as I can.”

Yuri drinks from his bottle, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and pauses. He is back to Yuuri, resting his elbows on the board and looking at the ice in front of him.

“Can I visit when you stop showing up at the rink?”

“Of course,” Yuuri says, and his smile is so warm and happy that Yuri does not know why he does it, but he smiles back.

 

During one of the regular check-ups Lena points out that Yuuri’s weight is slightly over what it should be at this state of the pregnancy. Yuuri pouts but he is not surprised. He has stopped his training and eats just about everything that looks edible, sometimes simply to see how it tastes. Yuri has learned to lock his lunch in his locker during practice and Victor does not blink when his sandwich disappears in the time he needs to close the fridge. Victor promises he will help Yuuri pay more attention to what he eats, and Yuuri’s glare lets him know he had better not stand between his belly and his food.

 

Yuuri is halfway through  _ “Dude, you’re gonna be a dad” _ when Victor comes home. Yuuri likes to leave little sticky notes for his husband when he finds something interesting in the book he reads. The chapters ’Taking care of your wife’, ‘Chores, daddy style’ and ‘Pregnancy sex’ are already covered and  bent at the corners.

"I think I found an apartment,” Victor says as he takes off his jacket.

Yuuri straightens on the couch. 

"It was just vacated last week, it’s not even on the market yet,” Victor adds.

Victor’s eyes sparkle, and Yuuri knows it’s not for a one-and-a-half-room rathole above a noisy restaurant. "Do you have pictures?" he asks as he puts down his book. 

"No,” Victor says without losing his smile. “I want you to come and visit with me tomorrow, will you?" 

Yuuri brushes his belly with his hand. It gets rounder and heavier every day. "Of course." 

 

The door of the apartment is not completely open yet but Yuuri is already surprised. The main room is large and the farthest wall is just windows over the city. They are on the top floor and the building is not high, but the view is striking. It is the end of the afternoon but the place is bathed in warm sunlight. 

Victor gently pushes Yuuri forward so he and the real estate agent can step in as well, and the dark wooden floor creaks under their feet.

The agent begins a long and polished description of the place and the area, and Victor cannot even stop him to let him know he already knows the city and the district. Yuuri's eyes linger on the couch in the middle of the living room. It looks extremely soft and comfortable. He would probably sink between the cushions if he slept on it, especially if Victor lay down with him. 

Yuuri looks around. The kitchen is open, clean and modern. There is a rice cooker in a corner and Yuuri suspects Victor to have put it there on purpose. He sees a dog bowl by the fridge and wonders if Victor has already started to move without telling him.

The main bedroom is not too large, the double bed takes up most of the space, but the large windows and the soft color of the walls make it light and refined.

The real estate agent pushes a door to what Yuuri thought was a cupboard and reveals a roomy walking closet.

“Which side do you want?” Victor asks when Yuuri turns to look around.

“I don’t even have enough clothes for this shelf.”

“Yes, you do,” Victor says with a smile, and Yuuri blushes thinking about the piles of maternity clothes he has not touched yet. 

Victor pulls a large drawer at the bottom. “How many pairs of skates do you think we can fit in there?” 

“Ten if they are baby skates.”

In the smallest bedroom is a large bow window, and in front of it, a wide armchair with a fluffy blanket thrown on the backrest. Yuuri’s feet are aching, and he wishes he could slump into the armchair and let Victor do the rest of the visit while he takes a cozy nap. 

The bathroom is clear and stripped down. A bathtub wide enough for two, a double bowl vanity and a skylight.

“Underfloor heating,” Victor whispers when Yuuri walks in and stops to look at the tiled floor.  Yuuri shakes his head at the superfluity. 

They are back in the living room and Yuuri stretches his back slowly while Victor discusses with the agent. His eyes stop on a stone fireplace in front of the couch. He blinks.

“It works.”

Yuuri turns around and Victor nods. “The fireplace. It’s not just decoration.”

Yuuri remembers his last winter in St Petersburg and has a little shiver. Victor is terribly manipulative.

The real estate agent leaves them alone to take a phone call and Victor wraps his arm around Yuuri’s waist.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“It’s big…”

“It’s only two bedrooms. We can’t go any smaller.”

Yuuri is convinced there are much smaller two bedrooms apartments, but he also has to admit the place is cozy and does not feel too big and empty. Victor continues:

“I thought it was a nice place to start a family. It’s close to everything. The rink is three blocks away. The kindergarten is just down the street.”

“How much is it?”

Victor shrugs slightly.

“Victor…”

“I’ve always been renting so far, I’ve never made any big purchase before, we can afford it.”

“Maybe you can but I’m pretty sure I can’t,” Yuuri insists, and he feels his heart quickens at the embarrassment. 

Deep down he knows Victor would not engage in hazardous home loans, and although Yuuri has refused to get a shared bank account, his brain can easily make up a rough estimation of what Victor has earned over the years through prizes and sponsors.

Victor tightens his embrace slightly.

“Yuuri, everything I own belongs you.” 

Victor pauses and Yuuri looks down to hide his flush. He twists his fingers nervously when Victor resumes softly.

“Tell me you don’t like this apartment and I’ll look for another one, but please just think about it for a second. Imagine how nice it’d be to live here. How comfortable it’ll be this winter. How beautiful it’ll be in the spring.”

Yuuri looks through the wide window. There is a little park down behind the building, and children run on the playground. Two women are sitting on a bench in the shadow of a tall tree, one of them has a hand on a bassinet and rocks it gently. 

He tries to convince himself that he is not a college student anymore and that he cannot raise a child in a shared student dorm or whatever place that does not cost several tens of millions of rubles, but everything still feels like it is too much. He knows there are two bedrooms apartments that are a lot cheaper. 

And yet he cannot help but feel at home already. The sun in the main room is soft and warm, the parental bedroom is cozy and inviting, and he can easily picture himself waking up here every day. Victor fits perfectly in the picture too. Yuuri can almost already see his suits in the closet and Makkachin sleeping in front of the fireplace. The apartment is one of a kind and will not be available very long. 

Victor sees his hesitation and gives him a peck on the cheek. “Yuuuuuri,” he says softly, “I want to live here with my husband and my baby, will you let me?”

The woman sitting on the bench in the park now holds her baby in her arms. Yuuri pensively touches his belly and sighs. “Yeah, I like it too. I’d like to live here with you,” he says with a little smile.

Victor flips his bang to the side. “I made an offer yesterday.”

Yuuri looks up and blinks in incredulity. Victor blushes slightly. 

“I thought you’d like it and I was afraid it would slip through our fingers if I didn’t make a move quickly,” he explains. “I didn’t want you to be disappointed after seeing it.”

Yuuri shakes his head slowly. He is actually barely surprised. He shrugs and stretches his back with a small moan. "If you need me I'll be napping in the armchair, tell me when you're done moving our stuff."

Victor’s offer is one they cannot refuse, and so not a week later they find themselves owners of a rooftop apartment in the center of the city. 

 

They cannot move in for another three weeks but it just gives them time to pack their belongings.

In a heated argument Yuuri refuses to throw away his collection of posters of Victor, and Victor insists Yuuri does not need them, because he is married to the person on the poster and even has a little version of him inside him.

Yuuri counts seventeen pairs of skates hidden in various parts of the apartment, and eventually confronts Victor after finding a pair of white skates under the hot water tank. Victor admits he has a hard time throwing his old pairs away, and so he hoards them until he does not know where to put them anymore. Yuuri knows figure skaters can have up to six pairs ready to use during competitions, and sometimes go through a pair in only a few months. How five-times-world-champion Victor did not die under a mountain of his old skates remains a mystery. 

They both shake their head at the size of the box labeled “Makka - Toys”, and Victor takes the occasion to sort out his clothes. Yuuri did not know that a black suit could become out of style, and carefully packs his own single suit for fear Victor will throw it away like he threatens to do every time he sees Yuuri wearing it. 

Yuuri is not allowed to carry anything heavier than his posters, and not even all of them at the same time, and so he quietly watches the movers takes their life in the truck while Victor gives them instructions. They knock one of Victor's fourteen lamps against the door frame of the bedroom and Yuuri hugs Victor very tightly to prevent him from terrorizing a young worker.

At the end of the afternoon one the movers stops to put down a heavy box and catch is breath. 

"What the hell? Are you moving with boxes of lead?" 

Victor twitches."Gold. That's gold."

 

Victor’s apartment looks much smaller once the furniture has been removed. They stand in the empty living room and Victor looks around with nostalgia. 

“I’m sorry you have to move out for me,” Yuuri says when he sees Victor take his time before heading out for the last time.

“I don’t mind, I wasn’t very attached to this place. The only good memories I have here are with you, and I’m taking you with me.”

“What kind of memories?”

Victor tilts his head thoughtfully. “The first time you came over. The first time you stayed for dinner.”

Yuuri chuckles. “We had Chinese takeout.”

“The first time you stayed the night,” Victor continues smoothly. 

Yuuri blushes. He realizes he also has important memories here. “You carried me over that threshold.”

“And I’ll do it again in the other apartment.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not.”

“We need to do it in every room of the new apartment,” Yuuri mutters.

“Even in the baby’s room?”

“It’s not a baby’s room yet…”

“We’ve not vacated this apartment yet.”

 

It’s another hour before they close the front door for the last time. Yuuri watches Victor remove his name from the mailbox and brushes his belly thoughtfully. Sometimes it looks like Victor never wonders if they have taken the right decision. Like he already knows they have. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and all the best for the new year! <3
> 
> Come and see me on [Tumblr](https://dontstopyurinow.tumblr.com/) :)
> 
> 01/02/18: Chap 3 is about 85% done :)


	3. Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi :)
> 
> So this chapter is like twice as long as the first one because I have no self-control, I’m sorry. 
> 
> It was again beta read by [LGFUADJJ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LGFUADJJ/pseuds/LGFUADJJ) and it took her hours, I feel really bad for this, please show her some love. :)
> 
> Also guys have you seen the art [Hawesome](http://hawesome.tumblr.com/) made for the first chapter of this story? :o you can see it here on their [Twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/haw3some/status/945756869724950528) I love it! <3
> 
> Enjoy!

“Bingo,” Yuuri mutters as he tries to catch his breath, his cheeks red and his limbs limp.

Victor kisses his collarbone. “We didn’t have to do all the rooms the same day...” he whispers weakly.

“You wouldn’t be that tired if we hadn’t done it twice in the bathroom.”

“I’m not tired.”

Yuuri has a hearty laugh and pecks the top of Victor’s head as he frees himself from his embrace. 

There are still a couple of cardboard boxes in the bedroom, but after a week they are now officially settled in their new apartment. It will need a bit of decoration but Yuuri already feels at home. He spends cozy mornings with Makkachin, he sometimes goes to the rink to watch Victor and Yuri if he feels like it, and he never misses an appointment at the hospital. 

It feels like there are always new tests, screenings, or exams for him and his baby. He cannot believe how big his belly is getting, and every time Lena measures it he expects her to tell him that it is not normal to be that swollen. Despite long hours spent covering his skin with oils and butters, stretch marks have appeared under his belly button, and Yuuri’s heart tightens every time he sees them in the mirror. He already had a few of them on his hips and thighs, because he tended to put on weight easily, but these just make him regret the time he had actual abs and his skin was smooth over his stomach.

“Your skin has never been so soft,” Victor whispers when Yuuri pouts at his reflection in the mirror.

Yuuri cannot see anything but his messy hair, his dark circles, his thighs that become thicker every day, and the giant bump that grossly distorts his silhouette. 

Victor sees that Yuuri is glowing, that his cheeks are pink when his touches his belly, that his eyes sparkle when he feels the baby move inside him. He has a hard time focusing on anything, because Yuuri’s butt and thighs have become so plump and appealing that he constantly daydreams about touching them and gently pressing his fingers in the soft flesh of his hips.

Yuuri catches Victor watching him when he walks naked between the bathroom and the closet. 

“What?” he asks, suddenly self-conscious. 

“You’re so round.”

Yuuri looks down and strokes his belly. He sighs. “I can’t see my dick anymore.”

Victor glances down as well. “It’s still there,” he assures.

Yuuri rolls his eyes but cannot repress a smile. He crawls on the bed and wiggles to lies down on his side next to Victor. 

“I don’t believe you.”

Victor raises his eyebrows in surprise. He smirks and pushes Yuuri’s shoulder so he slowly rolls on his back. He sits up on his heels, kisses Yuuri’s belly, and gently presses on his knees to spread his legs. Yuuri twitches with excitement and lets his head fall back on his pillow. He feels Victor’s fingers between his thighs, his warm palm at the base of his cock, and then the light tip of his tongue on the head. Without waiting Victor takes him into his mouth, and it is all wet, and hot, and Yuuri cannot help but gasp. He is moaning when Victor stops and looks up.

“What about now?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “I still don’t believe you.”

Victor smiles and Yuuri quivers with pleasure when he feels his mouth on him again. Victor’s tongue is so fervent and his lips so passionate that Yuuri is soon out of breath. He runs a hand in Victor’s hair as he stammers. “Ok… I… I believe you… I believe you now.”

But Victor keeps going, even when Yuuri spasms and spills in his mouth.

“Victor!” Yuuri protests in a cry, shaking at the overstimulation. 

With a last swirl of the tongue Victor releases him and kneels between his legs. Yuuri is flushed down to his collarbones and his chest heaves slowly as his breathing calms down. He weakly furrows his brows and pouts when Victor has a jeering smile. 

“Sorry. I really wanted to make sure you were convinced.”

 

Yuuri is up early in the morning despite his appointment being at eleven, so he can have breakfast with Victor before he leaves for the rink. He is scrolling through various apps on his phone when Victor kisses his cheek and smiles.

“You dropped something on your shirt.”

Yuuri looks down and is confused to see a wet patch on his chest. He has not eaten anything since he got up and so he does not understand what could have fallen on his T-shirt. He shrugs and goes to change, thinking he might have splashed himself while brushing his teeth or refilling Makkachin’s water bowl.

It is only when three hours later Victor comes back and points out the same stain on his clean shirt that Yuuri frowns. Before he can move, Victor pulls up Yuuri’s shirt and rubs his nipple with his thumb. When he takes his hand back the pad of his thumb is wet. Yuuri watches with wide eyes when Victor licks it to taste it. 

“It’s salty.”

“You think I’m sweating from my nipples?”

Victor shrugs. “Do you feel something different?”

“No,” Yuuri says as he shakes his head. 

 

In the exam room that morning Anna looks at Yuuri without a word. She puts on a pair of gloves and lightly presses around his nipple. 

“It’s not sweat,” she says slowly. “You’re producing colostrum.” 

“Is this bad?”

“No, it’s normal. Good even. We didn’t talk about it before, but it makes sense.”

“It makes sense?”

“It’s to feed your baby.”

“To feed… my baby?”

“Your body is getting ready to produce milk for when your baby is born.”

Yuuri suddenly understands exactly what is happening. He looks at Anna, and then at Victor and they both look perfectly relaxed. Victor gives him a little smile and Yuuri shakes his head vigorously.

“No!” he shouts, louder than he would have liked.

“…No?” Anna repeats blandly.

“I don’t want this! Why is this happening?”

“It’s a normal thing that happens during a pregnancy.”

“No!”

“Yuuri…” Victor whispers as he brushes his arm.

“I don’t care that I’m fat and I can’t fit in my skates and I have to go to the bathroom every fifteen minutes but this…” Yuuri shivers, “this is gross.”

He rubs his chest with the palm of his hands as if he could stop his nipples from leaking by pressing them hard enough.

“You don’t have to breastfeed if you don’t want to,” Anna says softly. “If you don’t you’ll stop lactating soon after the birth. A lot of women choose not to breastfeed, and others can’t do it for medical reasons, they directly start with formula, it’s perfectly fine.”

“Will I… Will I get... breasts?” Yuuri asks in despair.

“Women with very small breasts never grow double Ds. You will be swollen but it will eventually go back to normal.”

Yuuri breathes slowly and tries to convince himself that in a year it will be forgotten. “How can I stop the leaking?”

Anna tilts her head and raises her shoulders with a sorry wince. “You can’t really do anything to prevent it, but you can wear pads in your… bra.”

Yuuri hides his face in his hands and feels his eyes water. Victor rubs his back softly. 

“I didn’t agree for this,” Yuui murmurs despite himself.

“I know,” Victor whispers as he kisses Yuuri’s temple softly. “We’ll find a solution, ok? Don’t worry about it.”

The colder weather allows Yuuri to wear two T-shirts and let the first one absorb any leakage. 

 

One afternoon Victor is taking off his skates at the rink when Yuuri sits next to him. 

“Yakov doesn’t want the fourth quad,” Victor begins, used to sharing his skating concerns with Yuuri, “but everybody does at least three and JJ said he’d do five, can you believe-“

He stops talking when he realizes that Yuuri is not listening. He is holding his belly and looking strangely focused. He winces, and Victor almost twists his ankle as he jumps up on one untied skate.

“Are you ok? I’ll call the hospital to say we’re coming.”

“No, I’m alright, Lena told me it was normal.”

“Are you sure?”

“As long as it’s not regular or painful it’s ok, it should stop soon.”

Victor squats and extends his hand to place it over Yuuri’s on his belly. “What does it feel like?”

“Like a cramp.”

“Tell me if you need anything.”

“Can we go home?”

Victor nods. “Yeah, I’ll shower at home, just let me put on my shoes.”

  
  


Early October Victor gets to work in the smaller bedroom to make it ready for the baby. It is a beautiful and cozy room but, so far, it looks nothing like a nursery. 

Yuuri is forbidden to walk into the room because of the paint fumes but he likes to ignore Victor’s protests and lean against the door frame to watch his husband make a mess with the paint roller. They have chosen a light blue and it is not long before Victor gets it in his hair and on about every part of his body. 

At first Yuuri was surprised when Victor said he wanted to paint the room himself. He had not lifted a single box during the move and so Yuuri figured they would hire professionals to do the job, but now he understands. Standing on the stepladder, his overalls dirty with paint, and his hair messily tousled, Victor is glowing with joy. It is such an unusual thing to see. Victor, who usually pays so much attention to his looks and never has a misplaced strand of hair in public, getting sweaty and messy to do something he could easily have paid someone else to do. 

At the end of the day Victor has taken his shirt off and rolled his overalls on his hips. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and smears more paint on his face. Yuuri wiggles suggestively in the doorway.

“Looks like someone needs a shower…”

“Will you help me clean the paint off my back?”

“I’ll clean you everywhere.”

 

Yuuri has stopped counting the number of times he has had to do blood and urine tests. He often wonders if regular pregnant women undergo that many exams. Sometimes he feels like he is getting a taste of what it feels like to be a woman. All the information he reads is written to address women, the other patients sitting with him in the maternity waiting room are all women, and his gynecologist tried to poke him with a vaginal ultrasound probe.

“But I don’t have a vagina,” Yuuri had said with a small smile, keeping wary eyes on the wand.

“That’s right,” she had nodded, “I wonder where I could put this.”

“No.”

“Turn on your side.”

“Victor!”

“It’s funny how everybody in this office is pregnant but squirms like a virgin when I want to examine them.”

 

All of this is probably why Yuuri is not so surprised when Lena hands him a leaflet with a picture of a group of women on the first page at the end of his appointment. He shivers when he realizes he has already seen it before.

“Childbirth classes?” Victor reads over Yuuri’s shoulder. 

“But why?” Yuuri asks as his heart quickens. “I won’t… I thought you said that I wouldn’t…”

“No, you can’t give birth naturally, the connection between your rectum and your uterus won’t allow it. It’s nothing like we’ve seen before to be honest, it’s so deep inside you I still can’t believe you got pregnant, you’d need such a long…”

She stops and Yuuri does not need to look up to know that Victor is beaming. He rolls his eyes but cannot hide the slight flush of his cheeks.

“Anyway,” Lena resumes, trying very hard to ignore Victor’s self-satisfied grin, “classes aren’t only about natural delivery, they will also teach you what happens during a C-section, how the recovery goes, healthy eating, and breastfeeding. You don’t have to go, but I think it would be good.”

“Can’t you just tell us everything now?”

Lena shakes her head. “I’m sorry Yuuri but I don’t have time to give you several hours of explanation. Plus the class is just on the upper floor, it’d be stupid to repeat here what’s being said there.”

“I can arrange my schedule to drive you and pick you up after the class,” Victor says casually, still busy glowing with pride.

“Actually you need to attend too Victor, most women come with their husband so they know what to expect.”

Victor does his best to conceal his confusion and his apprehension as Yuuri looks at him hopefully.

“I guess it can’t hurt to be well informed,” Victor shrugs, taking the leaflet. 

 

Yuuri and Victor soon understand that yes, it can hurt to get too much information. This HD video of a natural birth will probably haunt their nightmares for a while. Several men are turning a delicate shade of green and Yuuri sees Victor turn to stand up as the screen changes and reads “Cesarean Procedure”. He grabs his wrist and pulls him down on his seat. 

“You stay right here, Nikiforov.”

A man next to them exchanges a look with Victor. His wife has a hand firmly clasped on his thigh to prevent him from running away.  

After the first couple of hours Yuuri finds that he can relate to the other participants more than he expected. If some of them find him strange, no one asks him if he is actually a man. They compare the size of their bump, exchange tips on maternity clothes and relate stories of gender reveals and baby showers. Yuuri has spent so much time in his apartment that it feels relieving to meet new people without having to hide his belly. 

 

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Yuuri scowls as he and Victor sit in the car at the end of the afternoon, “the advice on breastfeeding was great.”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t interesting,” Victor whines, “I’m saying I didn’t need to know what an episiotomy is.”

“It’s not like we’re concerned anyway.”

“A man tried to explain to me how the birth of his twins ruined his sex life forever.”

“Victor stop,” Yuuri sighs. “Get over it. It’s good to be informed and I’m glad we went, but you know it won’t happen to me and I’ll still be as good as new after the birth, so stop worrying about distended vaginas.”

“As good as new? You look a bit too pregnant to be a virgin to be honest…”

“I don’t know, I didn’t feel anything, it might’ve been immaculate conception.”

Victor breaks so abruptly that the car behind them honks. “You didn’t feel- Take that back.”

“It was so holy and pure Leroy came to see it.”

“Yuuri…”

“I think we need to do it again so I remember how it felt.”

“You’re lucky you’re pregnant and I’m super gentle with you.”

“I know,” Yuuri smiles. “Take care of me a bit more?”

 

It is a rainy night and they are going to bed when Victor runs his hands under Yuuri’s pullover. He feels something under his fingers that he was not expecting just before Yuuri twitches and jumps from the bed. He keeps his arms over his chest as to hide himself.

“What wrong?” Victor asks.

Yuuri looks down, then up at the ceiling, and lets his arms flap at his sides. “I was tired of the leaking and I remembered what Lena said… about pads that women could put in their bras. I ordered some and tried to stick them to my T-shirt but it didn’t work very well.”

Yuuri pulls on his sweater and takes off his T-shirt at the same time. Underneath Victor is surprised to see that Yuuri is wearing a bra. Thin triangles of fabric cover his chest and delicate dentelle straps contour his shoulders. 

“It’s cute,” Victor says, unable to find more appropriate words.

“I know… I figured if I was going to buy a bra I’d choose a nice one.” 

“You only bought one?”

“I have three.”

Yuuri’s cheeks are deep crimson and Victor can almost feel the heat radiate from the tip of his ears. Yuuri hooks his thumbs under his waistband and turns around. So very slowly he pulls down his pants and reveals matching panties. 

Victor cannot look away from Yuuri. Everything in the way Yuuri stands in front of him is unique and mesmerizing. His silhouette is curved with the heavy shape of his belly, his thin fingers brush over his skin softly as he keeps his hands over his chest. The fabric of his lingerie shimmers in the light and accentuate every movement he does. Victor knows it is a sight no other man will ever see, and he wonders what he did to be so lucky.

Sitting on the bed Victor holds out his hand to invite Yuuri on his lap. Yuuri does not hesitate and he shivers when Victor runs a hand up his back and pulls on his bra.

“Can I?”

Yuuri nods shyly and Victor pinches the back of the bralette. It comes undone and falls on Yuuri’s shoulders. Victor slowly moves Yuuri from his lap to have him lie on the bed. Yuuri trembles again and so Victor quickly takes off his pants and shirt and lies next to him before pulling the blanket over them. Yuuri turns on his side and Victor gets closer until they are spooning.

Yuri can feel Victor behind him, and he is hard too, but the slow caress and careful touches make him feel warm and cozy. He turns his head to kiss Victor above his shoulder and slightly arches his back to press against him. Victor sneaks a hand around Yuuri’s belly and takes his cock in his hand, stroking it slowly but regularly. Soon Yuuri wiggles his ass against Victor’s length to ask for more, and so Victor takes off his underwear and pulls down Yuuri’s panties.

When he does not feel Victor’s hand on him anymore Yuuri closes his eyes. He hears Victor open the nightstand drawer and slightly parts his legs in anticipation. Yuuri purrs with pleasure when Victor teases him with the tips of his fingers and slowly massages him open. Lying on his side under the comforter, everything is easy and comfortable for Yuuri. He barely has to move and only focuses on the sensations Victor gives him, relaxing against him until he is melting in a moan. 

Yuuri spreads his legs a little more when Victor removes his fingers, and pushes back when he feels the head of his cock press between his ass cheeks. Yuuri has a soft whimper when Victor slowly pushes his length inside him, inch by inch, until his hips are flush with Yuuri’s ass and they are perfectly interlocked. 

Sex has hardly ever been so soft. Yuuri moans in his pillow as Victor gently pulls out and back in, still stroking Yuuri’s cock with one hand and caressing his chest with the other. When Yuuri’s breathing quickens Victor pulls his leg up so he can turn to face him and go deeper. He kisses Yuuri’s shoulder, and down his chest, and finally sucks on his nipple. Yuuri is embarrassed for about half a second before he sinks back in his pillows and abandons himself to the feeling of Victor’s mouth on him.

 

“You know I’ve been thinking since the classes…” Yuuri says when they have cleaned up and pulled the blanket over them to sleep.

Victor hums against his chest.

“Maybe it’d be good if I did breastfeed,” Yuuri says slowly.

Victor hums again and kisses his nipple. 

“I mean with hindsight I… I sort of got used to the idea,” Yuuri adds, “and I know I’m lucky that I can do it so… Maybe?”

“If you want to, I’m all for it,” Victor says with a yawn.

“You don’t think it’s weird?”

Victor shakes his head. “You keep amazing me every day.”

 

They are just back from the rink when Yuuri sees Victor check his phone and twitch in annoyance. The first two times Yuuri ignored it, but it is not like Victor to be annoyed by social media or to let someone disturb him.

“What’s going on?” he asks when Victor puts his phone back in his pocket.

Victor looks up at Yuuri, then at his belly, hesitates for a second, and finally has a little sigh. He sits on the couch next to his husband. 

“Chris will be in St Petersburg for the Rostelecom Cup. He keeps asking when he can come and visit our new place. I said I could go out for lunch with him but he wants to see you too, he says he misses you this season.”

“Oh…”

“Hey… It’s ok, I’ll tell him we cannot see him and that’s it, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Yuuri winces. He shakes his head and reaches for his phone on the coffee table.

“Phichit will be there too…” he says. “He’s been asking to see me for ages and I… I tried to ignore him but I feel really bad…”

“I can tell him that we’re busy and that you cannot see him this time if you want me to.”

Yuuri sniffles and wipes his watery eyes with his fingers.

“I feel so bad lying to everybody… like I’m hiding because I’m a monster.”

“Yuuri no…”

“I should have told Yuuko about it I… the more I lie the more I’m ashamed of myself…”

“I thought it would help you to have privacy.”

“I thought so too but it’s just horrible to feel like I cannot talk about anything because people will be disgusted, I feel disgusting,” Yuuri sobs.

“You’re not disgusting.”

“Sometimes it feels like we’re doing something immoral, like we don’t have the right to have this baby and it was wrong to keep it, or like we’ve done questionable moves to get it.”

Victor cradles him against his chest. He knows perfectly well the feeling Yuuri is describing. Gay couples are not supposed to be able to have a biological child, and it is like Yuuri has stolen something that had always been a female privilege. 

“It just happened and we accepted it,” Yuuri continues, “we didn’t do anything wrong, but I still feel like I’m a repugnant experiment or something. I’m tired of being ashamed because I kept my baby I just… I just didn’t want to kill it, does that make me a monster?”

“Do you want to tell everybody?”

“Not everybody but I’ll tell Chris and Phichit,” Yuuri says as he wipes his tears, “and if others visit or ask questions I’ll tell them as well, is that ok?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“You will be associated with a gross pregnant man.”

“You’re carrying my daughter, how could I be ashamed of that?”

 

Chris and Phichit arrive in the early afternoon the day after their free skate. Victor welcomes them and explains that Yuuri will join them in a moment. They sit around a steaming teapot and it is Victor’s turn to relate Yuuri’s story. He tries to stick to the facts and not dwell on the feelings, but he has to admit it is not easy to present everything without letting his emotions take over. When Victor comes to explain that the doctors discovered that Yuuri was pregnant, Chris and Phichit exchange a surprised look and have a heartfelt laugh. Victor waits for them to stop and pinches his lips. The two others frown and he nods in confirmation.

“But… how?” Phichit asks, incredulous.

“Victor…,” Chris says with a smirk. “You always manage to better us all…”

Victor stands up to gently knock on the bedroom door. Yuuri slowly opens it and appears in the doorway. He wears a large sweater and if one was not looking too close it could look like he is just chubby and bloated. 

Chris and Phichit watch him as Victor helps him sit cross legged on the couch.

“Sorry,” Yuuri says softly. “I thought you would be grossed out if you saw me before getting the whole explanation.”

He pulls on his sleeves and rolls up his sweater to take it off and only keep his T-shirt.

Phichit cannot help but back up a bit. “Wow, Yuuri…”

“Victor…” Chris whispers, eyes widening at the size of Yuuri’s stomach.

Yuuri caresses his belly and smiles. No matter how surprised they look, it feels good not to hide anymore.

Yuri and Otabek join the four of them for dinner. Yuuri’s stomach always feels simultaneously tense and heavy, and yet surprisingly empty. While the others have a lively conversation, Yuuri discretely fills his plate a third time. Victor has gotten used to his sneaky moves and pinches his lips. 

“Yuuuri,” he whispers, “you’re eating for two, not for six…”

Yuuri does not bother keeping his voice low. “How many people are you drinking for, Victor?”

The group laughs. “After the delivery you’ll have a big party and get wasted like when you asked Victor to coach you!” Phichit says with enthusiasm.

Yuuri shakes his head as he swallows his mouthful. “I can’t, it’ll go in the milk.”

“In… the milk?”

Maybe it is because he ate too much and he feels a bit sleepy, or because Phichit and Chris’ faces are funny, but Yuuri finds that he could not care less what they think anymore.

“The pregnancy hormones make me produce milk in my breasts so I can breastfeed,” Yuuri declares casually as he stuffs another spoonful of rice in his mouth.

There is a silence until Chris speaks with a deep voice. “That’s… very interesting.”

“Chris, no.”

“Oh come on Victor!”

“No.”

“Will this ever stop getting grosser every time I see you?” Yuri asks sternly. 

“Breast milk is full of good things for the baby, it’s a blessing that Yuuri can do it.”

Yuuri has stopped eating and brushes his belly lovingly. “It’s not gross,” he mutters almost for himself.

“Can I touch it?” Yuri asks suddenly, setting his fork down and jumping from his chair. Phichit watches with fascination as Yuri places his hand on Yuuri’s swollen stomach. He can guess that it is not the first time he does it, and Yuuri seems quite comfortable with letting him run his hand over his belly to feel where the baby is moving.

“There,” Yuri says and takes Phichit’s hand to place it at the right place. 

Phichit gapes at Yuuri before he quickly takes his hand away. 

Yuri and Phichit keep looking at Yuuri’s belly and asking him questions, and Yuuri is almost convinced that Victor is telling Chris exactly how deep his uterus is inside his stomach and what a prowess it was to make him pregnant. 

“Will you come back next season?” Phichit asks, and Yuri stops to listen to Yuuri’s answer.

Yuuri raises his shoulders and strokes his stomach. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “It depends on how I feel afterward, it… I mean it changed my body quite a lot I’m not sure I can… And Victor and I can’t spend our days at the rink when we have a 6-month-old baby.”

Phichit nods slowly. Yuri does not say anything but his shoulders drop slightly and he leaves Yuuri to talk with Otabek. 

“I’d be thankful if you didn’t tell anyone about it,” Yuuri says when his guests leave, hoping for Phichit and Chris to understand that he does not want his round belly to show up on Instagram in the following days.

 

When they walk home from the grocery store mid-October, Yuuri can see that Victor is unusually nervous. He keeps checking his phone and then glancing at Yuuri, he walks far slower than usual and even suggests walking a few minutes in the park behind their building.

“We should put these in the fridge first,” Yuuri says as he nods toward the brown paper bags Victor is holding. “And I’m tired, you can come back to walk Makka after putting away the dairies if you want, I’ll just nap.”

“We can sit on this bench a little bit so you can rest-“

Yuuri stops walking and Victor winces at the look he is getting.

“I said I was tired and you don’t want me to go home?” Yuuri asks, suspicious. Over the past month Victor has made sure Yuuri never pushed himself too much and rested as much as he could, and now that Yuuri is getting heavier and crankier it makes no sense for him to delay their return home after Yuuri’s complaints.

Victor sighs and clenches his fists.

“I’m not supposed to tell you but I don’t really trust you with big emotions right now…”

“What?”

“You know your birthday is coming soon…”

“It’s in a month”

“The team wanted to throw a party for you, but then they realized they would all be gifting you baby gifts and so Mila pointed out that it would actually be a sort of baby shower…”

“A baby shower?”

“I told them I didn’t want to plan a party only a month before the delivery, plus it’d have been a week before the final so it was rather impractical.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “I don’t really feel like having people over to be honest, I don’t think I have the energy for a party…”

Victor bites his lower lip and looks away sheepishly. “That’s what I told them but…” He has a weak apologetic smile and Yuuri understands.

“They’re already there, aren’t they?”

“With the preliminary assignments it was the only possible date for Yuri, Mila, and Otabek… They wanted to keep it a secret but I’m not ready to deal with a trip to the hospital if you and the baby get a bit too surprised. They’re waiting for us in our apartment.”

Yuuri pauses. He knows they meant well but he would have been grateful if the team had asked for his opinion beforehand. After hiding his bump for such a long time, he suddenly feels weirdly exposed knowing that other people bought gifts for his baby. 

“We should not make them wait,” Yuuri says with a soft shrug as he takes Victor’s hand.

 

The living room in their new apartment is large enough to welcome the team, and Mila and Georgi have put up decorations on the table. Despite Victor’s revelation, Yuuri is still shaken to see so many people around his coffee table.

Yuri is standing by the window and looking at the city. If he squints his eyes he can see the roof of the rink among the other buildings. 

“Is this what you can afford when you win five Grand Prix Finals in a row?” he asks without looking up when Victor comes up to him.

“You also need to win five world championships, an Olympic medal, and sell your soul to the sponsors.”

“I hope you didn’t promise them your first born.”

Victor has a small but bitter smile and Yuri knows their discussion is only partially a joke. Professional skaters cannot live securely off prize money, they depend heavily on sponsorship contracts and sometimes it takes Yuri all the motivation in the world to attend events thrown by the brand that manufactures his blades. It does feel like he is selling his body, like his face does not belong to him anymore. He has seen pictures of himself on ads he did not even know existed and been asked to say ridiculously formal sentences to promote his training gear or his hairspray. But Yuri needs the money, he cannot pay for his trips, his coaches, and his skates with his government allowance. So he smiles when he is asked to and he keeps his anger and humiliation for himself. He has no doubt that Victor will keep his daughter away from these contracts as long as possible.

“In three weeks I’ll only be two Grand Prix away from you.”

“You’ve not won yet.”

Yuri snorts. “Katsudon would need to slide on his stomach like a penguin to get on the ice, and JJ is tired after his first jumps, I don’t see anyone else who-”

Someone clears their throat and Yuri blushes. Otabek walks closer. “You want to bet on who will win again?”

“Do you enjoy losing?” Yuri mumbles.

“You regretted betting last time…”

“What does the winner get?”

Otabek bends and whispers in Yuri’s ear. Yuri flushes to the root of his hair.

“Deal.”

Yuuri is red in embarrassment when everybody is excited to see him. They are all captivated by his belly and he feels incredibly self-conscious. He sits on the couch, crosses his legs, and grabs a pillow to hide his stomach behind it. Victor sits next to him and hands him a cupcake that is covered in pink icing. Luckily it looks like the guests are doing very well at entertaining themselves and talking together. 

Yuuri takes one of the smallest presents, too intimidated by the big boxes he can see behind the couch. He feverishly unwraps the thin paper and raises his eyebrows. It is a baby onesie. It is black with a picture of a kitten in the moonlight on the front. 

“I wonder who this gift is from.”

“If you don’t want it I’ll keep it!”

“It’s ok Yuri we like it, thank you, it’s cute.”

When he takes the second gift, Yuuri knows it’s a book before opening it. He hopes it’s not one of the fatherhood books he has already read and learned by heart these past four months. He tears apart the wrapping paper and finds himself wishing it had been a second copy of “Becoming a father”. He does not need to think long to guess who offered him “Dad is fat”.

“Thank you Lilia, I didn’t own this one yet.”

Luckily the next present is much more pleasant. Victor squeaks when Yuuri holds out the cutest baby snowsuit. It is adorably tiny and at the same time warm for the winter and soft and fluffy inside. Yuuri can already see his little baby wiggle inside it when they go outside, and Georgi sighs fondly at his moved smile. 

After unwrapping a hooded bath towel, a Giraffe toy, a pair of baby shoes, and every possible form of a pillow, Yuuri opens a small electronic device that is shaped like a whale. He looks at it in confusion and takes a minute to read the description on the box. He looks up at Victor and pinches his lips briefly before he starts sobbing.

“I didn’t know we needed a bath thermometer,” he sniffles. “I’m going to be the worst dad ever…”

Victor holds him tight against his chest. “It’s ok… I don’t think a bath thermometer makes you a good or a bad father.” Then he gets closer to whisper in Yuuri’s ear a few words that the others will not hear. “You’ve already done more for her than I’ll ever be able to do. I can’t even begin to tell you how proud of you I am.”

“I just bought it because the whale was cute you know,” Mila explains in embarrassment, “You don’t have to use it at all, it’s more of a gadget than anything…”

“It’s cute though,” Yuuri mutters after wiping his tears, “it’ll be nice for bath time, thank you.”

The last gift is large and clumsily wrapped and Victor is the one to unwrap it. He turns the box and Yuuri sees that it is a car seat.

“Oh that’s great! We still had to buy one!” Yuuri smiles happily.

“Otabek can install it in seventeen seconds,” Yuri says, “but I’m just saying, Victor…”

Yuuri beams and Victor promises himself he will spend the next morning reading the instructions. 

 

At the end of the afternoon Victor thanks the last guests on the doorstep and closes the door behind them. When he is back in the living room he sees Yuuri lying on the couch with one of his new pillows, almost already asleep. Victor takes a fluffy blanket to cover him and Yuuri stirs slowly. He blinks and mumbles but Victor squats by the couch and brushes his hair softly.

“You’ve got time for a nap before dinner.”

Yuuri does not need to hear more to close his eyes again and pull the blanket almost completely over his head. When he is comfortably settled and he stops moving, Victor turns off the light so only the lights of the city and the soft glow of the fireplace remain. He sits in the armchair with his laptop and listens to the soft and regular breathing of his husband. Yuuri goes through so much that Victor barely sees him relaxed anymore, and seeing him rest quietly for a couple of hours is always a moment that Victor cherishes with all his heart. 

 

A chilly morning in late October Victor finds himself sitting on the floor of the baby’s room, surrounded by pieces of what is supposed to be a crib. He tenses when he hears the creaks of the wooden floor behind him. Yuuri is up, but Victor does not want him to see the mess.

The truth is that he is slightly overwhelmed by the task. The screw number 13 looks exactly like the screw number 17 and the bars do not seem to fit with the other pieces, and at this point he is almost sure he built the first half backwards and he will have to undo everything and start over. Yuuri had fallen in love with this design and they had bought it without realizing they had to build it themselves. 

When Yuuri appears in the doorway Victor scratches his head in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, it’s really easy but I don’t know, I keep messing up.”

Yuuri wriggles to their bedroom and comes back with a pillow. He sits cross legged on it, allowing room for his belly in the middle, and grabs the instruction booklet. 

After an hour it appears that Yuuri is not better at reading directions than Victor, and when they finally manage to assemble something that looks like a bed, they stand perplexed in front of it. It is strangely leaning to the side and it seems that it will fall apart with the lightest draft. 

“I’m not putting my baby in this,” Yuuri eventually says.

“We’ll order one that’s already built tomorrow,” Victor agrees. 

  
  


Yuuri just turned off the bedside lamp and wrapped his bump in the covers when he feels Victor press against him and caress between his thighs in a way that leaves very little to imagination. After a minute Yuuri winces in embarrassment and wiggles out of Victor’s arms. He hears a small sigh in the dark.

“Yuuri… Is there something wrong?”

“No, I’m just tired.”

“You’ve not let me touch you in like two weeks… I can understand if you’re feeling uncomfortable, but it’s been rather sudden. Am I doing something wrong?”

“No, nothing, you’re fine, I just... I’m not really in the mood.”

“Are you sure?” Victor asks in concern. Yuuri knows Victor is well aware that he is impossibly hard under the blanket.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Yuuri answers with a strangled voice. There is a sniffle and Victor sits up to turn the light back on. 

Yuuri is red and hiding his quiet sobs behind his hands. Victor shakes his head in incomprehension. “What’s going on?”

Yuuri pinches his lips in a thin line.

“Yuuri… tell me.”

Yuuri winces and tries to hide under the comforter but Victor holds it down. “You can’t expect me to let you cry your eyes out without telling me what’s wrong…”

Yuuri sniffles and wipes his tears with the sheets but his face is still red and glimmering wet in the soft light. “I… It hurt and…” he begins with difficulty, “I asked Lena during my appointment and she said…”

Victor’s heart races and he feels light-headed just thinking about what terrible news Yuuri might have heard that can make him break down like that. Horrible thoughts cross his mind and he can barely breathe. His mouth goes dry and when he tries to swallow his throat remains painfully tight.

“She said what Yuuri…”

“She said I had…” Yuuri utters, still covering his face with his fingers.

“Please,” Victor begs, and he feels like crying already because his heart cannot take it anymore. “We’ll go through this together.”

Yuuri stops to glance at Victor before bursting into tears again and stuttering: “She said I had hemorrhoids.”

For a few seconds Victor does not move and keeps waiting for the harrowing announcement that will break his heart and change his life forever. Yuuri is still shaking and sobbing, red in shame and looking away. 

When he understands nothing else will come, Victor blinks. He tries to bite his lip, he really tries, but he cannot help but laugh out loud. He hugs Yuuri, and the more Victor laughs, the more Yuuri cries, and none of them can stop. Victor cannot remember the last time he laughed so much. He just wants to hold Yuuri tight and cover him in kisses until he stops crying. He gives a final sigh of relief and pecks Yuuri’s temple as he wipes away his tears on his cheeks.

“I think we can go through this together,” he says, still amused.

“I’m disgusting I’m so sorry.”

“In the books they say almost every pregnant women have them at one point, and lots of people who aren’t pregnant have them too, I mean, I don’t, but-“

Yuuri cries louder and Victor is torn between behind sad because his husband is sad, and finding the scene strangely adorable.

“I meant that you don’t have to be ashamed… I was so scared for a minute, please don’t do that again.”

“Pregnant women they… they can still have sex but we…”

Victor pauses. Yuuri is stressed to the point of crying because he is concerned about their sex life. 

“We can still have sex too.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “No… It would hurt and Lena said we shouldn’t until I get better.”

Victor is pleased that Yuuri is that close with his midwife, but he also has to forgive her for not being used to same-sex male couples and not being able to help Yuuri with his worries. He hugs Yuuri and fakes a sigh. “It’d be so great if we could switch places in bed…”

Yuuri stops crying, and for the first time since he has turned off the light, he looks at Victor.

“It’s not like we’ve never done it before, we used to switch pretty often,” Victor says with a concerned frown.

And just when he thinks Yuuri is about to calm down, Yuuri sniffles loudly and hides his face in his hands again. “I forgot I could top you… I need to sit down to pee and I’m growing breasts, I feel so tired…”

Victor holds Yuuri close for a long moment. He brushes his hair slowly and leaves kisses on his forehead, his cheekbones, and the tip of his nose. When Yuuri has stopped crying Victor leaves for a minute and comes back with a hot cup of tea. Yuuri sips it without a word while Victor rubs his back to try and relax his shoulders that are still tense with stress. 

“I love her…” Yuuri mutters after a while, looking at his belly and warming his fingers on the hot cup. “I love her so much but sometimes… It’s hard.”

“It is already difficult for normal mothers, it’s not surprising that it’s taking so much out of you.”

“I didn’t expect it to be so complicated. I don’t regret anything but I… I wish I had known beforehand.”

“I wish we could switch that too,” Victor says pensively.

Yuuri looks over his shoulder and Victor tilts his head to the side. “I wish I could carry her sometimes so you could rest. I don’t like seeing you like that.”

“We could alternate, you carry her for a month, and then it’s me for another month, and then you again…”

“That seems fair.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “You wouldn’t last a week.” There is a silence and he almost believes Victor is going to argue, but he only sneaks his arms around Yuuri’s waist and kisses his neck.

“That’s true.”

Lucky for them Yuuri’s little discomfort is soon nothing but an embarrassing memory, and Yuuri does not have to escape Victor’s sneaky hands under the covers anymore.

 

Victor gets jealous of Yuuri’s body pillow and fights every night to be the one to be cradled against his chest. They are both amazed by the size of Yuuri’s stomach, and Victor is still puzzled by his belly button that has popped out, no matter how many times Yuuri and Lena assure him that it will go back to normal after the delivery. 

One night after they have finally put all the furniture they ordered in the baby’s room, Victor notices that Yuuri struggles to sleep and pulls him closer against his chest. 

“What’s on your mind?” Victor asks softly.

Yuuri takes a few seconds before answering. “The apartment, the gifts, all the medical expenses… What if something goes wrong and we’ve done all of this for nothing?”

Victor kisses the top of Yuuri’s head. “If something goes wrong right now, money will be the least of my concerns.”

“Me too but… I’m sorry I didn’t ask you before deciding to keep her, sometimes I… I forget that it’s your baby too and you have as much right to make a decision as I do.”

“It’s your body Yuuri, you were right to decide… I always thought I would adopt a child one day, and now you’re here, and you’re giving me my own child, and I still cannot believe it even when I feel her move in your belly.”

“I don’t really believe it either to be honest… Except when she kicks my bladder. Now that, that’s real.”

Victor brushes Yuuri’s belly and after several months Yuuri still shivers at the touch. Now Victor’s hand barely covers half of his stomach and his fingers are light on his taut skin.

“Do you think she will want to skate?” Victor asks.

“I’ve been wondering since the first day,” Yuuri admits with a smile. “We’ll know in a couple of years I guess.”

“What if she hates it?”

“She can’t even breathe and I love her already so I don’t think I really care whether she skates or not.”

“I love her too.” 

  
  


With the help of the internet and Anna’s indications, Yuuri establishes a long list of the things they need to buy for the baby. Some of them he wants to buy himself, but for others he commissions Victor to avoid a long trip to the mall and sidelong looks from the people. Victor looks at the list and feels like he does not really want to look for everything alone.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Yuri grumbles behind the pack of diapers he is holding. 

“I can’t believe I’ve been coaching you for a year and you’ve never paid me once,” Victor answers as he pushes the shopping cart.

“You’re not coaching me.”

“That must be true because if I was, you would land that flip one hundred percent of the time.”

“I’m only here because of katsudon and you know it.”

“That makes two of us.”

Yuri drops the diapers in the cart and Victor takes out his phone to check Yuuri’s list. He squints at the screen.

“We need bottles with newborn nipples… Whatever that is.”

“What-”

“This one is supposed to mimic the shape of a breast so the baby knows how to suck on it,” Otabek says as he reads the back of a packaging. Yuri snatches it and shoves it in Victor’s hands.

“Does this look like katsudon’s nipples?”

Victor blinks at the translucent bottles. “… No. But we need six of these, thanks Otabek.”

“What about that?” Yuri asks as he stands on his toes to catch an item on a higher shelf.

Victor shakes his head. “Yuuri already bought pacifiers, we don’t need more.”

“These have colors of animals of the savannah!” Yuri insists as he waves the bright packaging under Victor’s nose.

“I said no.”

Yuri hisses and gives the pacifiers to Otabek so he can put it back on the high shelf. Victor pushes the shopping cart farther in the aisle and frowns at his phone. “How can I buy shampoo if I don’t know if her hair is going to be thick and dark like Yuuri’s or thin and blond like mine?”

Yuri pops the cap of the first bottle of baby soap he can grab and sniffs it. “This one smells good, take it.”

While Victor compares three brands of tiny socks, Otabek absently looks at a row of food jars. 

“Not these,” Yuri says as he looks over his shoulder. “They’re disgusting, try sweet potatoes or banana.”

Otabek does not comment, because at eighteen Yuri still likes to drink boxed juice, and somehow it would not be surprising if he also ate baby food. 

“We don’t need food anyway,” Victor shrugs, “we’re here for bibs.”

After pacing in the aisle for fifteen minutes Yuri reaches the very limits of his extremely short patience. “Victor, it’s a burp cloth, it’s made for the baby to puke on it, it doesn’t have to be cute.”

“This is only 50% cotton though.”

“This one is 100% organic cotton,” Otabek says as he points at the bottom of the shelves. 

“That’s great,” Yuri says as he raises his arms in exasperation, “it’ll biodegrade directly on your shoulder with the vomit.”

 

Yuuri is excited to see them come back to the apartment so he can go through the things they have bought. He watches them pile the packs of diapers in the smaller bedroom and holds his belly with one hand as he leans against the doorframe of the bedroom.

“Why… Why did you get so many?” he asks weakly.

“I thought it would be better if we didn’t have to go out to buy them during the first two or three weeks,” Victor answers.

“Two or three weeks? But she’s only a baby she doesn’t need... that many…”

“If we count ten to fifteen a day we have just enough for two weeks.”

Yuuri’s brain rushes to give him terrifying numbers. That’s more than one change every two hours if he does not sleep. “I don’t think I can change fifteen diapers a day…” he mutters as he shakes his head slowly. 

“What if I change eight and you have seven left?” Victor asks as he hugs him.

“You do the ones during the night.”

Victor winces slightly but still kisses Yuuri on the temple. “I’ll try.”

 

One afternoon at the beginning of November, Yuuri wakes up from his nap and Victor is not in the bedroom. He stirs, and frowns when he hears two voices in the living room. He rubs his eyes and yawns. He does not remember Victor telling him that they were expecting someone. He rolls on his other side and sits up slowly. His belly feels heavier every day. He takes a moment to brush his distended skin and appreciate the soft movement under it. He pulls up a pair of leggings, contorts himself to put on his socks, and chooses a comfy sweater. He can hear Victor talk in the living room, and so he shyly opens the door and peeks outside. 

There is a man he does not know sitting on the couch. He is wearing a dark suit and his hair is slicked back on his head. The man looks up when he hears the door open and his eyes meet Yuuri’s. Victor is sitting in front of the man and he turns to look at Yuuri too.

“Yuuri you’re up,” he says with a small smile. “This is Mark, my lawyer. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, this was really last minute…”

Yuuri mechanically bows to the man but stays partially hidden behind the door. Victor stands up and walks up to him. He sneaks an arm around his waist and kisses his forehead.

“It’s ok, you can come and sit with us.”

“A lawyer?” 

“He knows everything about the baby.”

“You’re seeing a lawyer without me?” Yuuri asks in dismay. 

“He’s here to help us.”

“Help us for what? Why does he know everything about my baby?”

The man has stood up too and Yuuri does not miss the short glance he gives at his belly.

“Good afternoon Sir, I’m sorry for visiting with such a short notice,” he says formally.

Victor takes Yuuri’s hand and drags him to the couch. They sit down and Victor clears his throat. “We’re having… issues with birth registration,” he begins.

“Issues?” Yuuri repeats blandly.

“I asked Mark to look into it early, I figured it would be… complicated.”

“You can understand that there’s nothing planned for same-sex male couples who have a biological child,” the lawyer explains. “Some things exist for same-sex female couples but we cannot fill out those forms. We also can’t follow either the procedure for couples who use a surrogate, nor the adoption form.”

Yuuri feels like he is not awake enough to understand this conversation. “But... we didn’t adopt or use a surrogate…” he mutters as he tries to figure out the problem.

“I know Yuuri, I know,” Victor says, “but our situation is so unusual it does not fit the regular procedures.”

“She needs to be registered to get insurance coverage, to go to the doctor’s and to kindergarten, basically for everything in life,” Mark adds.

“Of course,” Yuuri nods.

“Right now the possibilities I see are either to change your legal status Mr. Katsuki, and be registered as a woman, which you can easily do considering your medical record, or follow the adoption procedure and we can try to stay… vague concerning the origin of the child.”

Victor shifts nervously on the couch and Yuuri blinks. “The origin of the child?...” he repeats with a wince as if he was not sure he has heard properly. “I’m not a woman…”

“I guess you could also declare yourself as a surrogate, they never really look into the mother’s record unless she changes her mind and causes a scandal after the birth. That way the biological link between Victor and the baby would be recognized. You’d lose your parental rights for the baby but Victor would have full custody and since you’re married It’d be as if you were both parents.”

The words are like blades in Yuuri’s chest. It is like every sentence is worse than the previous one. They hurt so deep he feels like they are directly touching his baby. All he sees is this man trying to take his child away from him, he sees his daughter growing up without knowing who carried her for nine months, and his own name absent from any record. 

Yuuri looks up and realizes that the lawyer is looking at him and waiting for an answer, as if he could decide in a minute whether he would rather lose his child or his legal identity. Yuuri covers his belly with his arms and turns to Victor, who still has not said anything. Victor remains silent and Yuuri cannot believe that he can hear everything the lawyer said without realizing how it hurts him. 

The lawyer pinches his lips and gathers the papers he had spread on the coffee table. “You can take a few days to-“

“But… it’s my baby…” Yuuri murmurs. Something snaps inside him. He feels like everything is going too fast and if he does not speak up now, it will be over before he can defend himself. He tries to think of a polite way to refuse the man’s help but nothing comes.

“I know, but without registration she-“

“IT’S MY BABY!” Yuuri shouts despite himself. “I’M CARRYING HER INSIDE ME! NO ONE HAS ANY RIGHT OVER HER BUT ME!”

“Yuuri…” Victor whispers as he leans to the side to hug him.

Yuuri moves to avoid him. He does not know if he is angrier toward the lawyer or Victor. He can feel his heart beat in his throat and when his eyes water he realizes how his chest is aching with the feeling of betrayal. 

“DON’T TOUCH ME!”

“Yuuri please-“

Yuuri turns around and rushes to the bedroom. When he hears Victor following him he locks the door behind himself.

“Yuuri! Let me in!”

But Yuuri does not answer. He does not even listen anymore. Victor knocks at the door again a couple of times but Yuuri remains silent. 

In a corner of the bedroom are bags full of baby clothes. Yuuri suddenly feels like they don’t belong to him anymore, like he will have to give them away with his baby once she’s born. 

He wraps himself in the blankets and ignores another couple of calls through the door. 

Maybe he dozes a bit, surely he keeps dwelling on the lawyer’s words until they do not make sense in his mind anymore. At one point he paces the room, and almost walks out to confront Victor, but stops when his hand touches the handle, and crawls back under the covers.

It is dark outside and his stomach is growling when he hears soft knocks on the door.

“Yuuri? Are you alright?” Victor asks, and he is surprised to hear Yuuri answer.

“It’s open.”

Victor slowly pushes the door. He needs a second to understand that the pile of blankets on the bed is actually Yuuri. He sits down next to him, and after a moment of hesitation Yuuri emerges and lets Victor hug him.

“I know... I know it’s not your fault but I... I couldn’t help it,” Yuuri mutters as Victor rubs his back.

“We won’t settle for any of this. We’ll create a precedent.”

“You think so?”

“It’ll take time but we’ll get there,” Victor says as he kisses the top of Yuuri’s head. There is a silence before Yuuri speaks again.

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?”

“What?”

“Why did you need so long to realize I didn’t want my baby to be registered as adopted?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You looked like you didn’t care or I don’t know… like you were fine with being the only legal parent and I… I’m here carrying your baby, I’m so fat and tired I can’t stand up without getting dizzy and you…”

“Yuuri I’m sorry, I thought you didn’t really care about the paperwork.”

“You keep thinking you know what I want but you’re sometimes so wrong I… Sometimes I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“I’ll try to pay more attention, I really thought it was not important to you, that you just wanted us to be together…”

“Victor… My body is never going to be the same again and you thought I wouldn’t mind my baby being officially the child of someone else?”

“I’m really sorry I-”

“Can you sleep on the couch tonight?”

Yuuri can barely believe the words he just said. It goes against all the manners he has ever been taught and it crushes his heart to ask that of the man he has admired and cherished almost his entire life. He is shaking as his sentence echoes in his head. 

Victor opens his mouth in surprise and for a second it looks like he will say something, but no sound comes out. He pinches his lips and looks at Yuuri again. Yuuri does not look away or take his question back. Victor’s shoulders drop and he nods as he lowers his head slightly.

“Yes, I can.”

Yuuri sighs, feeling oddly relieved. “Thank you.”

That night Yuuri is cold in their bed. He hugs his body pillow tightly but it does not replace the warmth of Victor’s arms. And yet he does not regret his decision. It would have felt wrong to cuddle, knowing Victor still does not understand why he feels so sad and angry. Yuuri pulls the cover over his head until only his nose is outside. He focuses on the slow movements he can feel in his belly and soon falls asleep.

On the couch Victor struggles to find a comfortable position. He knows that it is not because of the cushions or the armrest, he has already taken a lot of cozy naps in his living room. He can almost see the first colors of the sun when his exhaustion takes over his restless brain and he closes his eyes.

In the morning Yuuri finds his husband sprawled across the couch, one leg falling out of the blanket and his hair messy on his pillow. Victor does not stir when Yuuri kisses his cheek and adjusts the comforter over him. 

It is only two hours later when Yuuri pours himself a cup of tea that Victor drags his feet across the living room and comes up to him to hug him from behind. He hides his face in Yuuri’s neck and brushes down his sides until he can place his hands on his round belly. He stays there for a moment and Yuuri smiles slightly as he wonders if Victor has fallen back asleep on his shoulder. 

“I missed you. Both of you.”

“We missed you too,” Yuuri says as he turns around and gives Victor his cup of tea. He glances up and cannot help but feel guilty when he sees Victor’s cheek marked by his pillow, his hair tousled and his eyes small with the lack of sleep. “I’m sorry I kicked you out of your own bed.”

“No… I never know what to say and I end up hurting you, I’m sorry.  You’re… more ready than I am to have this baby,” Victor confesses quietly. “I’m excited to meet her, and I love when we get to see her, and when I feel her move inside you but… I still have no idea what I can do for both of you.”

“I have no idea what I’m doing either to be honest. I’m just happy when she turns in my belly. I’m excited to meet her too.”

Victor’s traits are still worried. Yuuri hugs him as tightly as his swollen stomach lets him.

“My mom said if we loved our baby and we had a lot of diapers we would be fine.”

“I think we can manage that.”

  
  


It is still early in November when Yuuri wakes up in the middle of the night. He stirs and turns but cannot fall back asleep. At 2am he finds himself watching the timer on his phone worriedly. He is sitting cross legged, resting in the pillows against the headboard and keeping his hands flat on his belly. He breathes slowly but he can already feel his abdomen tighten again. He cannot help but let out a soft whimper when the cramp comes and he feels his stomach harden under his fingers. His heart beats quicker and quicker as he tries very hard not to jump to conclusions.

Victor turns in the bed and blinks. In the white halo of the phone he can see Yuuri clench his teeth and press his hands on his belly. He pushes back the sheets and sits up.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m not sure.”

Victor turns on the bedside lamp. Yuuri’s face is tense and his eyebrows are knit in a worried frown. 

“Yuuri... why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I thought it would stop.”

“It’s not stopping?”

“That’s… That’s three under thirty minutes… Every nine minutes.”

Victor opens his mouth and closes it several times. “You’re only… It’s only been…”

“32 weeks I know, I tried to drink water and to relax but it’s not stopping.”

“Do you want to walk a little bit or take a bath?”

“No…” Yuuri says as he shakes his head, and he when he looks up at Victor his voice is a tiny murmur. “It’s painful.”

Victor brushes Yuuri’s stomach and nods in understanding. “I’ll get your coat.”

Yuuri wiggles in a pair of leggings and puts on his parka over his pajama shirt. Victor tries to put his right foot in his left shoe twice and finally finds the car keys in the third coat pocket he looks in. When he turns to tell Yuuri he’s ready to leave he sees him sat on the couch, breathing deeply and holding his bump.

“Just a minute,” he whispers with a wince.

Oh, Victor thought he was ready. He has read and re-read all the chapters about contractions and labor in the books, he has learned all the little things a husband can do when the other is in pain, he has memorized the soft words he can say and the massages he can do to calm his lover when he is overwhelmed. But seeing Yuuri whimper and tense with pain, struggle to go through a cramp and fight against his own body leaves Victor helpless. He just wants everything to stop, he wants to free Yuuri from the pain immediately, cradle him against his chest and tell him everything will be ok. He wishes he had never made him pregnant and Yuuri would never suffer again. 

Yuuri breathes deeply and sits upright. He looks up at Victor and holds out his hand to ask for help to stand up. 

 

Anna frowns as she runs the ultrasound probe over Yuuri’s stomach. Despite his best efforts to stay still, Yuuri cannot help but move his feet and twist his fingers on his chest nervously. After what feels like the longest exam he has ever undergone, Anna hands him a tissue to wipe his belly. 

“It looks like you’re starting labor,” she says calmly but seriously.

Yuuri shakes his head. “No… Not so soon…” he stammers. “I tried I… I can still… No…”

“Relax Yuuri, It’s not your fault. Your body’s probably eager to end the pregnancy because it was not meant to carry a baby in the first place, but it also happens in healthy women, it’s nothing you can control.”

Victor knows this whole scene is not about him. It is about Yuuri and the baby, and so he listens quietly, and pretends he is not about to pass out trying to figure out if he will be looking at the tiniest, frailest premature baby in an incubator in a few hours.

“Preterm labor doesn’t always mean preterm delivery,” Anna resumes when Yuuri does not move at all. “We’ll do everything we can to stop the contractions and then we’ll put you on bed rest, you should be fine.”

Victor paces the room when they put Yuuri on an IV and strap a monitor to his belly.  Another couple of contractions almost have Yuuri sob with stress. It is like his body is betraying him. He knows he is supposed to try and relax, but every time it comes stronger and it makes him more desperate than he was. He knows his little girl is not ready to see the world, and he feels terrible toward Victor for not being able to carry his baby to term. He is so anxious about everything that he barely notices when the contractions begin to weaken. Victor looks up when he hears Yuuri’s breathing calm down and see him let his head fall back against his pillow. When Yuuri is sure his stomach will not tighten again, he relaxes and closes his eyes for a few minutes. 

Victor is tired but he has chugged two cups of bitter vending machine coffee and has given up on trying to sit back. Yuuri is sleeping quietly when Anna comes to check on him. She looks at the graph traced by the monitor and sighs.

“He gave us quite a scare…” she says softly.

Victor rubs his face with his hands. His eyes sting with the lack of sleep and the neon lights of the room.

“Will it… Will it be worse for the actual birth?” he asks with concern.

“I can’t promise that there won’t be other contractions, but if we keep them under control he should be fine. Yuuri’s scheduled for a C-section so he shouldn’t experience labor like mothers who deliver the baby naturally do.”

Victor nods and focuses on the idea that everything will go fine, that he will not see Yuuri whimper in pain and clench his teeth because he is carrying their baby again.

When Yuuri wakes up in his hospital bed, the night is still dark and Victor has dozed off on his chair. He reaches for his phone and calls his mother. Hiroko picks up quickly but it is still morning in Hasetsu, she knows Yuuri is calling her too early for it to be a routine discussion.

“Yuuri? Is there something wrong? Are you alright?”

“Yes I’m alright, I’m fine I.. I’m in the hospital right now.”

“Mari! Yuuri’s in the hospital!”

“Mom, it’s ok now, I had a labor scare last night so they’re keeping me a little bit to make sure I’m ok and the baby is fine too.”

“Oh Yuuri… Do you want us to come? We can take the next plane.”

Yuuri smiles fondly and looks up at Victor, who will probably fall off his chair if he does not wake up soon.

“No, Victor will bring me back home when they let me out and I’ll stay in bed, I’ll be fine.”

“Call us if anything happens, I don’t care what time it is, ok?”

“I know mom, I will.”

“I’ve been so worried about you and your baby lately. I’ve always thought I’d help Mari when she gets pregnant and now here I am, thousands of miles away from you… What kind of mother am I?”

“Mom, you supported me when I started ballet, and when I ranked sixth out of six at the Grand Prix in front of the entire world, and now you still support me after I accidentally fell pregnant although I’m your son,” Yuuri chuckles. “If I can be half as good of a parent as you were to me I’ll be proud.”

“I’m sure you and Victor will do great.”

Yuuri hangs up a few minutes later and wiggles out of his bed to gently shake Victor’s shoulder. 

“Lie in my bed with me?” Yuuri asks when Victor blinks, yawns, and stirs at the same time.

“Yuuri you shouldn’t be up!”

“I need to use the bathroom, may I?”

Victor grunts and rubs his eyes when Yuuri leaves his side.

When Lena comes into the room in the morning she shakes her head in disapproval. Both Yuuri and Victor are in the bed, sleeping soundly as if they were at home. She crosses her arms over her chest and clears her throat loudly. Yuuri opens his eyes and squints at the bright lights.

“See?” she asks as she points an accusatory finger at the two of them. “This is why we’re here. Because you two can’t stay away from each other for five seconds and fool around so often you got your ass pregnant. This is a hospital not a hotel Victor! If you want to stay the night you need to be sick or pregnant, so now unless you can pee on a stick and show me two pink bands, you’re out!”

Yuuri and Victor have to pull their best puppy eyes to calm her down. Yuuri insists it was his idea and it helped him sleep better, and Victor gets Lena a cup of coffee and a chocolate bar from the vending machine. 

“Stay at home, try not to stand up too long when you don’t have to, limit it to showers, bathroom breaks, and short distances,” Lena says when she’s done checking on Yuuri and his baby. “I’m sure Victor can bring your meals to the couch for you.”

Yuuri grins at his husband, who shrugs slightly. Then Lena talks more seriously.

“I need you to know that if you go into labor after 34 weeks we won’t try to stop it again.”

“But why?”

“Labor cannot always be stopped and this point the baby will be born without too much risk, it’s safer to let her be born than to use heavy medication to try and stop the process.”

Yuuri pinches his lips and nods. He gently runs his fingers over his belly and silently hopes he can keep his baby warm and cozy inside him until the due date.

He is free to go home at noon.

When Victor shows up at the rink that afternoon, everybody can see that something is wrong before he even reaches the barrier. He does not have his sports bag, he is not wearing his training gear, and his hair is messy. When Yuri skates closer he sees the dark circles under his eyes and the creases in his shirt. 

“Yuuri’s had troubles with the baby so he will be resting at home and I’ll stay with him for the rest of the week.”

Victor can see that Yuri is fighting not to ask all the questions he has. It is barely a month before the Grand Prix and Victor has choreographed both of his programs and pushed him until he mastered every step. If Yuuri’s condition remains fragile Yuri will have to fly to the final with only Yakov, who has only been completing Victor’s training over the past months. He is fine with facing the preliminary assignments alone but, as difficult as it is for him to admit it, he needs Victor to come to the final, where his program will be as complex as it can be.

“Is he ok?” he eventually asks when he has swallowed back all his career concerns.

“Yes, he is now.”

“And the baby?”

“They’re both fine but Yuuri will stay in bed for a while.”

Yuri nods. 

“I’m sorry,” Victor adds.

Yuri shrugs in an attempt to look indifferent. “I’ll manage,” he says blandly.

 

Yuuri sleeps a lot during the week after his night at the hospital. He tries to convince himself that it is because he is tired and he has to rest anyway, but deep down he knows he sleeps to escape his guilt and his anxiety. 

“What if she comes too soon and she’s not ready?” he asks Victor when they cuddle on the couch.

“The hospital knows how to deal with premature babies, they will take care of her.”

“But what if she’s too small and she doesn’t make it?”

“I don’t know Yuuri, I… Please don’t ask me things like that.”

 

Yuri visits two weeks later when he comes back from the Cup of China. He takes off his shoes on the doormat and frowns when he sees Yuuri struggle to stand up from the couch. 

“Victor said you had to stay in bed,” Yuri grumbles.

“It’s ok, I’m still allowed to walk to the couch,” Yuuri smiles as he gives up and lets himself fall back in the cushions.

Victor hands him a cup of tea and Yuuri rests it on the top of his belly, enjoying the warmth against his chest. 

“How’s your ankle?” he casually asks Yuri.

Yuri blushes. He knows the public saw a beautiful quadruple flip during his free skate, but anybody who has ever jumped on the ice probably cringed at his terribly painful landing.

“It’s fine. How’s your stomach?”

“We’re fine,” Yuuri coos as he brushes his belly. 

Yuri looks at it with squinted eyes. “Are you sure you’re only expecting one baby?” he asks warily. 

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It’s not very comfortable but not really, just a bit in my back, it’s heavy and I’m tired.” 

“What will you call her?”

“Cat snake leopard,” Victor answers as he brings two other cups from the kitchen, gives one to Yuri, and sits next to his husband. “Katy for short.”

Yuri hisses. “You should call her ‘butt-baby’.”

Victor winces but Yuuri cannot help but laugh at the joke. “We’ve not chosen yet,” he says. “We still have time.”

“But you have ideas?”

“A few,” Victor admits.

“Evgenia?” Yuri blurts.

“No.”

“Yulia?”

“Yuri-“

“Elena?”

“Stop.”

“Irina?”

“YURI!”

“Will she take your name?”

Yuuri shrugs. “She will be Katsuki-Nikiforov like us.”

“Yuri’s asking if she’ll take my patronym,” Victor says. “We’ve not talked about it yet.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Yuuri asks.

“Why wouldn’t she take yours?”

“Yuurievna…” Yuri mutters thoughtfully.

“That sounds weird,” Yuuri chuckles.

“Well thank you,” Yuri spits bitterly.

“Thinking of having a daughter Yuri?” Victor teases. “How about… ‘Otabekovna’?” 

Yuri looks away but he has to hide behind his mug to cover his burning cheeks. “When will you go to the hospital?” he asks Yuuri in an attempt to change the subject. 

“I’ll be admitted on the 5 th .”

Yuri takes a sip of his tea and keeps staring at Yuuri’s bump. “Can I see the baby when it’s born?” 

“I’ll text you when you can visit us at the hospital,” Victor says.

“At the hospital?”

“Well yes, I’ll stay there for a few days…” Yuuri explains. “You can visit us here later if you prefer.”

“I’ll come to the hospital when you say I can,” Yuri answers quickly. He pauses and frowns with concern. “What if she looks like Victor and she’s already bald?”

Yuuri laughs again but Victor does not.

“Yuuri is getting tired, it’s time to leave Yuri.”

“Can I come back next week?”

Yuuri smiles. “You know you can come whenever you want. And it’s not like I’ll go out for a run…”

“After the Grand Prix I’ll come more often,” Yuri assures.

 

The nights get longer and longer as winter arrives and Victor has trouble waking Yuuri up in the morning.

“Yuuri?”

Yuuri smiles in his sleep.

“Yuuuuri?”

Yuuri stirs slowly.

“You have an appointment at nine,” Victor coos, “it’s time to get up.”

Yuuri turns and mumbles in his pillow. “I’m not going I’m too fat.”

“Come on I want to see her again!”

“She’s asleep too, let us sleep, go without us.”

“You have the time of my shower to get dressed.”

Yuuri hears the door of the bathroom close and slowly sits up. He struggles to stand and wiggles to the closet, arching his back to carry his belly. He picks out boxers, a pair of socks and a T-shirt. He bends, and turns, and holds his breath, but after a minute he decides that he is not awake enough and gives up. When Victor gets out of the shower he finds Yuuri sprawled on the bed, still completely naked.

“Can you help me put on my socks?” Yuuri asks, extending his leg and wiggling his toes toward Victor. 

Victor smiles and takes Yuuri’s foot in his hands. He kisses his ankle and slowly moves up to his knee and his inner thigh.

“We’re going to be late,” Yuuri mutters. 

“We are.”

“Anna said no.”

“She said no penetration.”

Yuuri hums and rubs his eyes as Victor’s lips move over his hips. He grumbles when Victor pushes him to have him roll over and he has to kneel not to rest on his belly. His arches his back to stretch like a cat and moan in a yawn when he has to spread his legs to accommodate his stomach. Soon he shivers and finds himself perfectly awake. 

“Victor, if your tongue goes in, it is penetration.”

“Not really.”

“Yes it is.”

“We should ask Anna.”

“No.”

“Want me to stop?”

“No.”

Yuuri is still flushed and limp when he lies down on the exam table and Lena drizzles gel on his belly. He blissfully watches the movements of his baby on the black and white screen. He is incredibly impatient to see her but at the same time every minute of his life is focused on keeping her inside him as long as possible. He wonders if she will have Victor’s eyes, if she will inherit his own black hair, if she will look like his sister. He and Victor look so different and his pregnancy is so particular that there is no way to predict what his daughter will look like. The only thing he knows for sure is that she will be beautiful. Sometimes his fourteen-year-old self pops in his head and he smiles just thinking about how he not only got married to the man on the posters but is also carrying his baby, which is far beyond what the most dedicated fan can do.

 

One morning Victor gets home from the rink and finds Yuuri sitting on the bed, surrounded by clothes. The closet is open and the drawers pulled. 

Yuuri looks down at his little display. There is the fluffy baby snowsuit they got as a gift, a little winter hat, and tiny mittens. Two small blankets are folded on the side, ready to be placed in the car seat. Yuuri’s heart beats fast in his chest. All these preparations make the birth seem so close that he is shaking with excitement. He cannot wait to hold his baby in his arms, to wrap her in the blankets and whisper sweet nothings until she falls asleep.

“I’m choosing what to pack for the hospital,” he says when Victor picks up a baby onesie with a concerned frown. “They said we had to be ready after 35 weeks.”

Victor looks around and for a minute everything looks a bit too real. The baby clothes, the diapers, the travel bag that is open on the bed, the little clouds on the baby blanket that Yuuri has on his knees. He has to focus to convince himself that they still have a few weeks and Yuuri is not leaving for the hospital on the spot. His eyes fall on the empty car seat and he suddenly feels absolutely not ready. Yuuri hums happily while folding a burp cloth and Victor tries to forget his moment of anxiety.

“They say to pack a robe or a sweater,” Yuuri says.

“You have the robe Mila bought you.”

“Can I take your grey sweater?”

“Of course, why would I say no?”

“It could get dirty…”

“Yuuri, I’d give you my Olympic medal if it could make your stay at the hospital more comfortable.”

Yuuri pinches his lips and seems to consider the offer for a second. “I’ll just take the grey sweater. Can you bring me my second pair of glasses that’s in the bathroom please?”

Yuuri reads the checklist he has on his phone and Victor fetches the things he needs to fill his bag.

“You need to pack your bag too,” Yuuri notes when he is almost done counting diapers.

“My bag?”

“I don’t want you to leave me alone at the hospital to come back here if you need something… There’s a checklist for you too on the website.”

Victor half-heartedly packs two outfits and a toiletry bag.  

“Some snacks too. Unless you like hospital food.”

“It’s ok there are snacks in the main bag.”

“These are my snacks, not yours.”

Victor raises his eyebrows and Yuuri pouts. “You know I’ll want to eat everything if I’m stressed.”

When the bags are filled and zipped Victor puts them under the coat rack next to their shoes so they just have to pick them up on their way out.

 

“I’m so fat,” Yuuri whimpers for himself when he looks at his figure in the mirror. He is really starting to doubt that he will one day be back to his previous weight. His stomach is so big and his skin so taut he just wants to cry when he remembers how thin and toned his waist used to be. He shivers just thinking about what he will look like after the birth once his stomach is empty and flabby. Victor does not seem to mind the changes in his body, but Yuuri knows it probably will not last if he does not quickly lose the extra weight after the delivery. He pictures himself all chubby and soft when Victor still looks like an underwear model, and feels his throat tighten. He tries to estimate how soon he will be able to train again but he does not know how well he will recover from the C-section, and he cannot imagine spending seven hours a day training if his tiny daughter is waiting for him at home.

He forgets his concerns when his baby moves inside him and Victor covers his skin in kisses and soft whispers. He murmurs how he loves her already and he cannot wait to see her, how proud he is to be her father and how lucky she is that Yuuri is taking care of her so well, and every time Yuuri’s heart swells with affection. 

 

When Victor comes back home after taking Makkachin out he does not see Yuuri on the couch nor on the bed. He checks the bathroom but it is empty. He is already thinking about calling the police when he opens the door of the second bedroom. 

Yuuri is sitting on the floor next to the crib, legs spread in front of him to leave room for his bump. 

“What are you doing?” Victor asks with concern.

Yuuri stops and looks up. He looks at the toothbrush he is holding and then at Victor. “I’m… cleaning.”

“With a toothbrush?”

“What if she touches dirt on the bars and then puts her fingers in her mouth?”

Victor glances at the open cupboard. The baby clothes they had kept in the shopping bags are now neatly hung up on the rack and folded on the shelves. 

“Did you hang these by color?”

“It’s so pretty.”

“Yuuri… You can barely walk to the bathroom, I can’t believe you did all of this… I should stay at home with you.”

“A week before the Grand Prix? I’d like to see you try…”

Yuuri rolls to kneel and Victor helps him stand up when his legs shake under the weight of his belly.

“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” Victor mutters, still holding Yuuri against his chest.

“It’s ok, there’s still a month to go before January. We can’t stop everything we’re doing so soon before the date.”

“It’s so far… If something happens I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Nothing will happen.”

Yuuri knows he is also trying to convince himself. The Grand Prix is in Montreal and Victor will need at least twelve hours to come back if Yuuri were to call him.

“Yuri won’t forgive you if you don’t go,” he adds when Victor does not answer.

“He never listens to me anyway.”

“You know it’s not true… Yakov’s getting old, and Yuri’s at the top of his career, he needs you.”

Victor shakes his head.

“It will attract negative attention if you don’t go,” Yuuri insists, “everybody knows you’ve been working with Yuri this season.”

“Not everybody…”

“The quad flip.”

“Almost all the finalists can do it now.”

“His step sequence writes ‘Nikiforov’ in the ice.”

“I’m not surprising anybody anymore, am I?”

“Listen, Phichit told me a couple of weird rumors about why I withdrew this season, we don’t need more people looking into our life.”

Victor frowns. “What are they saying?”

“Some people think I’m alcoholic,” Yuuri says with a roll of the eyes. “They think I have a beer belly and I go to the hospital for rehab. They say it’s so bad you’ve started going to the rink without me and we might even divorce. They found a couple of old pictures of me being drunk at the banquet and it didn’t really help,” he adds with a small giggle. 

“Yuuri… We should make a public declaration or I don’t know… Post a photo to say that we’re fine and you’re just taking a season off?”

“No it’s ok,” Yuuri shrugs. “I was afraid of the reaction of my family and my friends but… I don’t really care about the others. When they see how cute she is and how well we take care of her they’ll stop. She’ll be my 9 months sobriety coin.”

 

On the third of December Victor leaves for the Grand Prix Finale. Until the very last moment he wonders if he should stay, and Yuuri has to push him out of the apartment. 

“Call me if anything is wrong, I’ll take the first plane back.”

“I’ll be fine, it’s just for three days.”

“The hospital knows you’re alone, they’ll send an ambulance if you call them.”

“I know Victor, we went over everything five times. You’ll miss your plane if you don’t leave now.”

“Wait!”

Victor drops his bag at his feet and falls on his knees. He runs his hands under Yuuri’s sweater and pushes it up so he can kiss just above his belly button.

“I hope she’ll wait for me.”

“We’ll both wait for you,” Yuuri says softly. “Now go, I can hear Yuri complain from here.”

Victor leaves a last kiss on Yuuri’s forehead. “I love you.”

 

During Victor’s absence Yuuri barely moves from the couch but to take care of Makkachin. Twice a day he wraps himself in a winter coat and takes the elevator to let her out a few minutes, but quickly goes back to warm up by the fireplace. The apartment feels particularly empty without Victor. 

Yuri is third after of the short programs and Victor’s tension is tangible when Yuuri calls at the end of the day. 

“I can’t believe he flubbed the salchow! Seriously, if I left you alone to watch him take the fourth step on the podium I’ll-“

“Don’t you dare tell him something like that! Even for you it’d be awful coaching.”

“I didn’t need to fly four thousand miles to see him do a single axel.”

“Victor…” Yuuri growls threateningly.

There a silence and Victor sighs. When he resumes his voice is much quieter. “How is she?”

“Doing very well and crushing my bladder with great energy. I’m afraid she inherited my stamina.”

“What about you?”

“I’m almost out of chocolate bars but I think I can survive until you come back.”

“Anything new?”

“A few cramps, but nothing unusual.”

“Good.”

“Be nice with Yuri, it won’t help him to let out your frustration on him.”

“If he fails the salchow and the flip tomorrow he’ll miss the podium.”

“I think he’s well aware of that.”

“Yeah… You’re right.”

Yuuri hides behind his jar of ice cream when Yuri skates his free program. Sometimes he gets a glance of Victor behind the barrier and his heart tightens. 

Yuri lands all his jumps. Only two cameras catch him flip off Jean-Jacques when he steps off the ice.

Victor is almost on a plane before Yuri gets his gold medal.

“I’m never leaving you two again,” he mutters when he hugs Yuuri in their apartment.

“It was just three days.”

“Too long.”

 

Yuuri’s back aches a bit more every day. He wishes he could take a dip in the hot springs but he is not allowed to travel anymore, and he is exhausted just thinking about walking out the door. Sometimes Victor finds a book, a pair of socks, or even a half-eaten granola bar on the floor in the middle of the living room. He understands when he sees Yuuri try to pick up one of Makkachin’s toys and give up when his belly gets in the way and he is out of breath just bending forward. Victor ties Yuuri’s shoes for his next hospital appointment. 

Yuuri takes long baths to try and relax his back and his legs, and sometimes Victor joins him to rub his shoulders.

“Yuuri…”

“Hm?”

“Your belly is… moving.”

In Yuuri’s stomach the baby turns and stretches, and her little feet and fists push his skin and create small bumps around his belly button.

“It’s getting tight in there, she cannot move a lot.”

“I can’t wait to see her.”

“Just three weeks to go. I can’t wait either.”

 

Yuuri spends most of this days by the fireplace. It starts snowing heavily and he feels extremely cozy keeping his bump under a fluffy blanket. The city outside the windows is covered in white and the sounds are soft and muffled. Victor says that the weather gets worse every time he goes out for groceries, and that Mila has trouble being on time for practice because she lives too far to come on foot and public transportation is disrupted. 

“I thought you were used to this here,” Yuuri notes when Victor shakes the snowflakes out of his hair on the doorstep.

“It’s been a while since we last had this much snow. It happened when I was a kid but not so much over the past few years. We’re lucky we live so close to the rink, it’ll be a mess for the nationals if it keeps snowing like this.”

The Russian championships are held in St Petersburg and Yuuri feels very lucky that Victor does not have to travel across the country to follow Yuri. His belly has kept growing over the past couple of weeks and he cannot help but think that the 6 th of January is a bit too far for his liking. 

“How’s Yuri?” he asks when Victor slumps in the couch next to him. 

“There are some new faces that could give him a hard time if he doesn’t improve as quickly as they do.”

“He’s still young.”

Victor shrugs slightly. “He grew so much over the past two years he practically changed skates every month. You know him, he doesn’t say anything but I know he goes to the rink when it’s closed to keep working.”

“I’ll watch you two on TV next Saturday.”

 

That night Yuuri spends a long time caressing his belly. His baby does not want to sleep and lets him know very clearly. She turns, and kicks, and stretches against his other organs. Despite all the discomfort, Yuuri’s heart beats strong, and he still wonders how it is possible to feel so much love for someone who is not even born. He has never even seen her, and yet he already loves her more than anything else. It is like the center of his world has shifted and he is not the main character of his own life anymore. 

He rolls to lie closer to Victor and nuzzles against his chest. He pulls the blanket over both of them and tucks his head in. For the nth time, he counts the number of nights left before the birth and tries to focus on the feeling of having his daughter inside him. He feels warm and fuzzy, but also weirdly melancholic. Twenty nights and twenty days before he can meet her. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this long chapter, I hope you enjoyed it a much as I enjoyed writing it! :)
> 
> Come and see me on [Tumblr](https://dontstopyurinow.tumblr.com/) :)
> 
>  


	4. Winter 1

Victor leaves early the morning of the free skate for the Russian Nationals. Yuuri is almost glad that he has an excuse not to go, because the skylight of the bathroom is covered with a thick layer of snow and big snowflakes keep falling outside the windows no matter the time of the day or night. He and Victor sleep with several blankets and Victor always makes sure that Yuuri and his belly are all wrapped and cozy before he leaves the apartment in the morning. 

When he stretches in bed after waking up, Yuuri feels rather strange knowing that after the National Championships Victor will stay home, and they will just wait together for the 5 th and the time to go to the hospital. It’s the home stretch and despite uncountable exams, backaches, and sleepless nights, Yuuri feels like everything went too fast. He has gotten used to feeling his baby so close to him, and thinking that it will soon be over makes his heart tighten. Sometimes he cannot help but be bitter that he spent the first months of his pregnancy worrying instead of getting ready for his baby. He wishes he had three more months to prepare himself. 

His stomach has been feeling tense lately. His baby does not move as much anymore, and he really wonders how it will be in two weeks, when he already feels like he could not get any bigger. Everything is just pressure and discomfort. During his latest appointment Lena told him that his daughter had dropped between his hips, and that was why he had to go to the bathroom every five minutes. He keeps looking at his silhouette in the mirror and wondering how his baby can live upside down inside him all the time. 

Victor has reached a level of worship for him and his belly that Yuuri considers almost pathological. His belly button has gotten more kisses over the past few weeks than Victor used to give him in a year, and he has had his picture taken from about every angle possible, including whole albums of ‘Yuuri drooling on his pillow’, ‘Yuuri wincing when he stretches his back’, and ‘Yuuri feeling sick because of a weird smell’. It does not help Victor that most of Yuuri's pants have reached the limit of their waistband, and so when he stays at home Yuuri finds it much more comfortable to walk around with only his underwear and a long shirt, especially since he only gets out of bed to slip under a blanket on the couch. Victor whines every time he has to leave the apartment alone, and Yuri complains that he is absolutely useless at the rink because he spends his time sending texts to Yuuri to ask how his bundle of joy is doing.

 

At lunch before the skating event, Yuuri’s belly tightens. He does not really pay attention, he has gotten used to it and he is busy eating. He has already called Lena several times about it and she was clear that it was nothing to worry about at this point of his pregnancy. He keeps getting cramps in the afternoon, but he is so impatient to see Victor and Yuri on TV that he thinks that he is just a bit too excited, surely it will calm down once he sits down to watch the warm-ups. 

The competition will last the whole evening, so he makes about a liter of tea and grabs enough snacks to live on his couch for three months. He thinks about Victor, who tries to watch his diet and repeats that everything he eats, the baby eats, but still opens a pack of cookies. Yuuri has given up on resisting his cravings and is convinced that if he wants something it is because his baby wants it too, and so it is better to make them both happy.

He pets Makkachin during the commercial break but does not miss a second of the show in case he can have a glimpse of Victor, and the hair flip-wink-smile combo he only does for the camera. Yuuri will probably never tell his husband, but he is still his number one fan, and his heart still flutters when Victor looks at the camera and it seems that he is looking through Yuuri’s soul.

The first group of skaters appears on the ice to warm up and Yuuri pulls a blanket over himself, careful to keep his baby nice and warm. Makkachin jumps next to him on the couch and almost knocks his cup of tea out of his hand. In the movement he does to avoid the dog, Yuuri feels the muscle of his stomach twist, and he lets his mug fall in surprise. He sits back and waits a few seconds to catch his breath as the sudden pain fades away. When his belly does not hurt anymore, he slowly kneels to pick up his mug and put it on the coffee table. He looks at the stain of tea on the carpet and turns to get a sponge in the kitchen. After having uncomfortably and unsuccessfully tried to clean the stain, he sits down, and gasps when a new painful cramp hits his belly.

He sits cross-legged on the couch and stops moving, trying to gather his thoughts and calm his heartbeat. He watches the skater on TV and almost gets distracted, but does not see the end of the program because a new contraction makes his stomach harden and his muscles hurt. 

His phone is in front of him on the coffee table but he cannot bring himself to take it. It would be admitting that the contractions he feels are not normal, and asking for a direct trip to the hospital. He thought he was ready, but at this instant, it seems far easier to pretend that he can stay on the couch and wait for it to pass. He can just breathe slowly for a little while and surely his belly will stop cramping. 

His palms are clammy at the thought of the hospital room, his heart beats against his ribs, and his throat tightens. He does not want to go. He dreads the next painful contraction, he fears the trip to the maternity ward, and he is simply terrified to undergo surgery. He feels miserable because he knew from the beginning that he would have to have a C-section, but he kept putting off the issue and enjoying his quiet time at home without facing his concerns.

He moans against his hand as he feels the next cramp come. He needs Victor. He needs Victor by his side. He wants to tell him that it hurts and that he is scared, and he wants Victor to comfort him and hold him tight. It is ridiculous and maybe even pitiful, but that is what he needs right now.

He reaches for his phone and feverishly unlocks it before calling his husband. It feels like it rings for ages before he hears the voicemail. He calls again but gets the same result. He sends a text in case Victor checks his phone in the next minute, and tries to call Yuri. Yuri does not answer either, but it is not surprising, he cannot keep his phone in his costume. He probably left it in the locker room and will only pick it up after his program, at the end of the second group of skaters. Yuuri tries to call Victor a third time and feels like crying when he hangs up just before the voice mail. 

He realizes that he does not have Yakov’s or Lilia’s number. He quickly tries to estimate how long it will take for Victor to come home, but he knows he will have to add the podium ceremony and the press conference to the duration of the free skate, and all of this tells him that Victor won’t be home for at least three or four hours. 

Yuuri sighs deeply and wonders if he can wait that long. He probably can, he has already had contractions a lot of times and he knows how to deal with them. 

He changes his mind during the last program of the first group, when he realizes that he has not watched a second of it because he was focused on his belly and has had to breathe through regular contractions.

He tries to call Victor one more time but his phone rings in the void again. He groans and curses his airhead husband for not keeping his phone at hand in such a dire moment.

He imagines complexes chains of people he could call to try and reach someone who is at the rink. Maybe he could take a taxi to get there, but it does not seem like the smartest thing to do to go out by himself and then show up at the rink, almost nine months pregnant, in front of all the cameras.

He thinks about calling for an ambulance, but the idea of going to the hospital without Victor makes him so anxious he feels like throwing up on the couch.

He has an idea but he does not really like it. He lies down against the armrest and tries to relax. For a minute he almost believes that the cramps have slowed down but is quickly proved wrong. The next contraction convinces him that he cannot stay alone. In despair, he looks up the number of the St Petersburg rink on his laptop. He calls the first one he finds, the one that says “For further information on our planning and ticket reservation for the National Championships call…”

A young woman picks up the phone, confirms that he is calling the St Petersburg rink, and asks how she can help him.

“Svenia?” he almost shouts just as she finishes her sentence. Four different people work at the ticket office of the rink, and over the past two years Yuuri has met them all and never fails to greet them politely and do some small talk when Victor feels like stopping by the lodge at the end of practice before the beginning of the public shift.

“…Who are you?” she asks, taken aback.

“Svenia it’s Yuuri! Yuuri Katsuki!”

There’s a silence at the end of the line. “We’ve not seen Katsuki in months.”

“I know! I need to talk to Victor and he doesn’t answer his phone!”

“Victor?”

Yuuri rolls his eyes. He is calling the rink in St Petersburg and she asks who Victor is. “Victor Nikiforov! He’s there with Yuri Plisetsky!”

Another silence. She clears her throat. “Listen kiddo, we’re hosting a big event right now, I don’t have time for this. Victor has a website where he can get messages from his fans, I’m sure if you send him a message he’ll read it.”

Yuuri knows that Victor reads the messages he receives from his website, but he is also convinced that his baby will have finished high school by the time Victor answers. He sees himself calling an ambulance and having to go to the hospital with strangers, and lets out a whine.

“Svenia please, it’s me!”

“I don’t know how you got my name but don’t call this number again, we will not disturb Victor for that.”

“Victor forgets his super expensive shampoo in the showers of the rink like once a month and he always asks if you or the janitor found it! And he thinks that the bench that’s against the farthest wall in the locker room is his bench because there’s a poster of him above it!”

“What?”

“One day someone lent him keys to the rink and he never gave them back, it’s been fourteen years!”

“How…?”

“You’re sitting in the lodge by the entrance and there’s a picture of him at the 2005 Nationals on your desk.”

“Yuuri?”

“YES!” Yuuri cries in relief. “Svenia please, I need to talk to Victor but he doesn’t have his phone with him, can you find him and tell him to come back home?”

“Can’t you wait for the second group? It’s almost time and Yuri-”

“No, it cannot wait! Please, it’s urgent!”

Svenia pauses. When she talks again Yuuri can hear the smile in her voice.

“Urgent you say?”

 

In the St Petersburg rink, Yuri is stretching his leg against the wall, trying to calm his nerves as he waits for the beginning of the next session. He ended up first at the end of the short program, but only by a short point, and there is no way he will already let his spot at the top of the Russian podium to someone younger when he is himself still eighteen. The loudspeakers crackle and he looks up, expecting to hear the announcement of the second group warm up.

Instead, there is a chuckle and the commentator smiles in his microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, some people really make themselves at home in this rink, we take the opportunity of the break to deliver a personal message for Victor Nikiforov…” 

The crowd laughs and Victor cannot believe what he is hearing. He has already heard the commentator talk in this rink hundreds of times, and maybe he has also himself spoken a couple of times into the microphone during an exhibition rehearsal, but it suddenly feels like some kind of higher power is talking to him. Yuri shakes his head and the commentator resumes. 

“Yuuri Katsuki called to ask you to come home, he said it was urgent.” 

The crowd shouts and wolf whistles, and Victor is not sure he heard properly. He looks around but the situation still does not make any sense in his mind. He tries to grab his phone in his pocket and realizes that he has taken off his trench coat and does not have his mobile phone with him. He understands that it means that Yuuri has not been able to reach him and stands still, appalled by his own stupidity.

Someone slaps him across the face and the sharp sting on his cheek brings him back to reality. Yuri is pissed. “What the fuck are you still doing here?” he spits as he shoves Victor’s coat in his arms and pushes him to the exit. 

 

Victor has hardly ever run the distance between the rink and his apartment so fast, even when he lived one block closer and he was late for practice with Yakov. When he stumbles on the doorstep of his building his heart beats in his throat more than at the end of any program he has ever skated. He smashes the button of the elevator five times but throws himself between the doors to the staircase without waiting more than a second.

Once at his apartment he slams the front door open and looks around but does not see Yuuri. He is heading to the bedroom when he hears a small voice.

“I’m over here,” Yuuri says as he weakly waves his hand above his head. He is kneeling next to the couch, resting his elbows on the armrest as if he was praying. 

“Yuuri…” Victor breathes as he hurries to his side.

Yuuri’s cheeks are flushed. He looks up and has a small smile. He feels much better now. Just seeing Victor makes his chest feel warm and his stress fade. “I thought they’d take ages to find you in the crowd.”

“They took drastic measures.”

Yuuri wants to ask but he winces and hides his face in his arms as he stretches his back. When he looks up again he is calm and serious. “She’s early.”

“It could be another scare…”

There is a mix of hope and anxiety in Victor’s voice that makes Yuuri wish he could tell him that yes, it is probably a false alarm, and that no, they are not going to have a baby today, but he can only shake his head slowly. “I don’t think so.”

Victor nods slowly. “How long?”

“It started before the first group, I thought it’d stop but during the break it got worse, I tried to call you but…”

Victor feels extremely ashamed. He was quietly following the competition while his husband was alone, suffering, and needing immediate medical assistance. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I took off my coat and left it in the locker room with Yuri’s stuff like I do when we have practice.”

“It’s ok, you’re here now.”

 

Victor quickly gathers their bags and helps Yuuri put on his shoes with trembling fingers. No matter how many times Yuuri tells him that they have time and that he is ok so far, Victor keeps shaking, and he lets the car keys slip through his fingers twice before he can put them in his pocket. In the elevator he is so pale that Yuuri feels like he has to reassure him. He takes Victor’s hand, puts his other hand over his round stomach, and smiles again. “We’re doing this.”

Victor’s eyes widen and Yuuri does not know whether it is because of fear or realization. “Yeah… we are.”

 

The road is busy, several streets are closed because of the snow and cars honk in impatience as a bus slowly drives down a boulevard, careful not to break too hard and glide to the middle of the next intersection. Victor’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel. When the red light turns green, he steps on the gas and passes three cars before changing gear. The engine roars in protest, and Yuuri would have been terrified if he was not already concerned by another matter.

“Victor…” he mutters as he contorts himself on his seat to try and look under his belly. He pulls on the fabric of his pants and quivers at the disgusting slimy sensation between his thighs. For a second he wonders if he just completely lost control of his bladder. It is liquid, warm, and it now runs down his legs. “Victor, I’m wet.” 

“What?”

“My pants are wet!”

Victor glances to the passenger side for half a second before focusing on the road again. “It’s ok, I didn’t really like these seats anyway.”

 

Victor bursts into the maternity ward and Yuuri follows as he can, holding his stomach and arching his back. The lobby is buzzing with people and they struggle to reach the reception desk. Victor tries to elbow his way in the crowd when Yuuri’s fingers tighten around his hand. He looks up to see Anna, her hair messy and her cheeks pink, standing in front of Yuuri.  

“Yuuri? What are you doing here?” she asks in disbelief.

“I… I think I…”

“Yuuri’s having contractions,” Victor says seriously.

Anna pouts in annoyance. “I’ll try to find a minute to examine you but that’s really not a good time!”

“We didn’t choose!” Victor scolds.

“I’m leaking,” Yuuri whimpers.

Anna looks down when he wiggles uncomfortably, and her eyes widen as she understands. Her face loses any trace of discontent. “Oh no… Listen, we’re kind of overwhelmed right now, the labor rooms are full, you need to register at the desk and wait, I’ll be back for you quickly!”

She disappears before Yuuri or Victor can protest. Someone in the lobby gives their seat to Yuuri and Victor fills out the check-in forms. They wait ten, twenty, thirty minutes, and no one comes for them. Yuuri keeps wincing and pressing Victor’s hand, and Victor quickly loses patience as his worry becomes anger. He kisses Yuuri’s fingers and brushes his hair. “I’ll try to see what’s going on, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Yuuri wants to say no but Victor is already gone. His heart beats fast in his chest, he feels like nothing is going how he had imagined it and every minute that passes makes it worse. The gynecologist has told him many times how he would deliver his baby, and he cannot stop thinking about how sweet and peaceful it could have been. He would have arrived at the hospital without feeling a single labor contraction. He would have had time to get ready for the operation, and everything would have been easy.

And now he is sitting alone on a plastic chair, his pants soggy with whatever is coming out of his body, dreading the next cramp in his abdomen, and trying not to cry because Victor has left him alone. Nurses and assistants keep coming and going, patients and visitors gather noisily around him, and Yuuri wants to scream for someone to pay attention to him. 

It has been almost twenty minutes when Victor comes back. “They have a room for you,” he says with a relieved smile.

“But they said they had none and…” Yuuri stammers as he nods toward a woman lying on a bed in the corridor. 

“They found one.”

Yuuri wonders if Victor’s health insurance also covers “bribing the staff”.

Victor helps Yuuri put on his gown and folds his clothes in his bag. Yuuri barely has time to sit on his bed before Anna comes in a rush and rolls the ultrasound unit next to his bed.

“It’d be easier if I could touch your cervix between your legs,” she mumbles, and Yuuri would feel guilty, but he is too busy worrying for his baby.

“Ok, we’re good,” she says after looking at the monitor for a minute. “No reason to panic, I’ll come back in an hour to see how you’re doing.”

“In an hour!?” Yuuri gasps.

“Yuuri, I’m really sorry but right now we have more urgent cases in the surgical suite and you’re not anywhere close to delivering this baby. I was almost ready to send you back home to be honest, you’re lucky your water broke and you’re not a regular patient… First-time moms can take over twelve hours of labor before the delivery, and you’re barely starting.”

“Twelve hours...” Yuuri murmurs, and his brain hurts as it tries to process the information. He had read it in the books but he had never really paid attention. His body is aching, he is scared, and the disillusion is hitting him hard. 

He does not want to admit it out loud, but until now he was more or less convinced that he would be treated as a very severe emergency and immediately be taken care of by doctors and nurses. He had gotten used to the special attention he was getting from his medical team and they had always made time for him and been very attentive despite his multiple calls and various questions. Since the beginning of his contractions, he held onto the idea that it would be over soon after his arrival at the hospital, and was basically hoping to hold his baby in his arms before the podium ceremony of the championships. 

“Look,” Anna resumes softly, “with the snowstorm we’ve had two women who delivered their baby in their car this morning, and one emergency C-section just minutes after another one arrived. You’re already here, so you’ll be fine, ok?”

Nothing has ever sounded less ok to Yuuri. He can barely believe what he has just heard. Victor hugs him tightly but Yuuri almost passes out in his arms when he imagines what could happen if his baby decided to try and see the world before he can make it to the operating theater.

Anna straps a monitor to his stomach and hooks him up on an IV, and Yuuri collapses on his bed as soon as she leaves. She has left the sound of the monitor on so he can hear the heartbeat of the baby, and he closes his eyes and listens to the steady rhythm to try and calm down.

Yuuri hesitates to call his family since he does not want to disturb them in the middle of the night. Victor persuades him that he will get scolded if his mother wakes up tomorrow and discovers that she became a grandmother during the night without being told. “And I’m not even talking about Mari… If she learns you gave birth and didn’t even give her a call…”

Yuuri takes a deep breath and presses the green phone on the screen. It rings for a while before his mother answers.

“Yuuri?”

“Mom?”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m… I’m at the hospital, I started having contractions this afternoon I…”

“Oh Yuuri… Is it for today?”

“I don’t know, they’re very busy, I’m waiting. They said my water broke.”

Hiroko gasps. “It really is time then. You’re waiting? Is Victor with you? Do you have a room? How close are your contractions?”

“Yes, yes he’s just next to me, yes I have a private room, not so close, every few minutes, but I…”

“I know Yuuri, I know, you didn’t plan for this.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure they won’t make you wait very long.”

Yuuri pinches his lips and nods, although he knows his mother cannot see him through the phone. 

“Yuuri you’re strong, I know you can do this,” she says when he remains silent. “And Victor’s here to help you.”

Yuuri mumbles something along the lines of “Victor isn’t having contractions every six minutes” and Hiroko chuckles.

“It’s not easy for him either you know… If he could help you more he would.”

“I know.”

“We’ll come as soon as we can.”

“You don’t have to…”

“I want to see my granddaughter.”

“I want to see her too… I’ll call you as soon as I can when she’s born.”

“I hope so! Can you let me talk to Victor?”

Victor raises his eyebrows but takes the phone Yuuri is giving him and brings it to his ear. He nods and frowns slightly. “Yes… Yes, of course… No, never!... Yes, I will.”

When he hangs up Yuuri is curious. “What did she ask you?”

“Something about taking care of you, not leaving you alone, promising to love and to cherish you… I think I’ve already said these things before,” Victor smiles as he kisses Yuuri’s wedding band.

 

His midwife visits again twice and has the same reaction as the first time. Despite his and Victor’s protests, she lets Yuuri wait in his room and says she will come back later. Yuuri tries to distract himself on his phone but the minutes pass slowly and each contraction makes him more tired. Victor paces in the room nervously until Yuuri asks him to stop, and so he sits on the bed and lets Yuuri rest his head on his shoulder.

“I’m so bored,” Yuuri whispers sadly as he looks at his socks and wiggles his toes. “I just want it to be over already.”

“Do you think she’ll have your eyes?” Victor asks.

Yuuri shakes his head. “She’ll be exactly like you.”

“How do you know?”

“I know it. She’s already trying to surprise everybody for her grand entrance, I don’t think she takes that after me.”

 

Victor convinces Yuuri to go and take a walk in the corridors, and they take thirty minutes to walk to the end of the hallway and back, every meter punctuated by Yuuri’s complains about how he is too fat for this, how he is still leaking and he will probably become a dried prune if it does not stop, and how he is a world class athlete and he can barely put one foot in front of the other. Victor listens to his grumbles patiently and watches every step he takes, stopping with him when he has to. He however regrets his idea when they walk past the room of a woman screaming in agony as she delivers her baby and Yuuri’s face turns a translucent shade of white.

 

Yuuri has been waiting for almost three hours when a doctor he does not know comes into his room. The man barely looks at Yuuri before he unfolds the graph of the monitor next to the bed.

“Hi,” he says with a glance at Victor, before looking back at the graph, “I’m here to check on your progress.”

Yuuri pulls on his gown and folds his legs under it. “Anna said she’d be back soon,” he mutters shyly.

“Your midwife’s busy with someone else, but I assure you I’m qualified to examine you, I’m the ob/gyn on duty today, I substitute for Mrs. Yanovna.”

“But…”

“Are we having a little boy or a little girl?” the man asks to lighten the mood.

“A girl,” Victor answers quickly.

The man chuckles. “Ah… A proud father, I see!”

Victor has a blissful smile, and Yuuri wonders if it is too late to change the father of his daughter. He glares at his husband, who loses his smile but still does not say a word. The doctor slumps on a stool and rolls to the end of Yuuri’s bed as he puts on a pair of blue gloves.

“Alright, feet in the stirrups please.”

“No, I-”

“Ma’am please, we don’t have time for prudishness.”

“But I’m not-”

“Come on, it’s not the first time someone examines you,” the man insists. “I just need to check how it is going.”

Yuuri understands that the man is just trying to do his job, but he does not have the heart to explain him the whole story of why he does not want him to put his fingers between his legs. He keeps pinching his lips and getting redder and redder. The doctor has a light impatient sigh.

“Ma’am, I need you to tell me what’s wrong.”

Yuuri wants to talk but he feels a new cramp coming, and only manages some sort of high pitched whine that really does not help his case. The doctor turns to Victor to give Yuuri the time to deal with his contraction. “Sir, is there a problem with me examining your wife?”

Victor shakes his head and shrugs, and so Yuuri decides that if Victor has decided to play dumb, there is no reason to let him win. He bites his lip and does as he is told, laying back in his pillows and placing his feet in the stirrups. The man adjusts the light and bends to look under Yuuri’s gown. He freezes and blinks several times. He frowns and leans forward, squinting as to see better. Yuuri sees Victor pinch his lips to repress a smile. Very slowly the man straightens up, takes off his gloves and throws them in the trash can.

“Well. You know what? This has been a very long shift,” he declares as he stands up. “I’m going to go home and rest a little bit.” He blinks and rubs his eyelids before pinching the bridge of his nose. “A very long shift… Too long.” Ever so stiffly he walks to the door, and disappears without turning back.

Yuuri puts his feet down and sits cross-legged on the bed, and Victor tousles his hair. “That was flashing,” he says teasingly.

“He asked for it, and you didn't help me!”

“Katsuki Yuuri, international champion, showing his genitals to poor exhausted doctors.”

“Stop it!” Yuuri protests, but he cannot help but blush even harder.

 

Yuuri has lain back down and tries to deal with the contractions that slowly get more and more intense and close to each other. Victor rubs his back, massages his shoulders, and brushes his hair with the tip of his fingers. When his stomach aches too much, Yuuri lies on his side, sits cross-legged against his pillows or paces by the bed. He braces himself on the bed rail when he feels a new contraction. 

Victor offers him his support, and Yuuri does not have to be told twice. Kneeling on the bed, he wraps his arms around his husband’s neck and clings onto him with all his weight. When the cramp in his belly fades, he rests his head against Victor’s chest and takes a brief moment of calm to catch his breath. Victor’s shirt smells like his cologne, with a hint of their laundry soap like their bedsheets. It is warm and comforting. It smells like home. 

At one point when the night is already dark, Victor checks his phone and heads to the door.

“Where are you going?” Yuuri asks in panic.

“Yuri’s here.”

“Why?”

“I asked him to stop by so I could give him a set of our keys. He’ll take care of Makkachin while we’re here.”

“Don’t leave me!”

“I’m just going to the lobby, he’s waiting at the reception desk.”

“What if they come for me while you’re down there?”

“I promise I’ll be super quick, ok?”

Yuuri grabs his wrist and presses his fingers in his skin so hard that Victor you have found it painful, if he had not been distracted by the burning anger in his husband’s eyes. Yuuri’s irises are so dark under his furrowed brows that Victor feels a chill down his neck. 

“You promised I could call you at any time and you left your phone in the lockers!” Yuuri growls between his clenched teeth.

The harshness of Yuuri’s voice hits Victor hard. He suddenly wonders how he actually believed he got away with his mistake so easily. Yuuri will probably never let him live it down, and that is maybe only fair. Victor knows he has no right to say anything in this situation, and he is about to sit back in his chair and text Yuri, when Anna comes to check on Yuuri. She says that he still has time, that he probably will go after the woman who is having a C-section for her triplets, but she cannot tell for sure. 

“But the baby?” Yuuri asks with concern. “It’s been hours, is she-‘

‘She’s fine, her heartbeat is strong. She’s in the perfect position, she’ll come right out!” 

Yuuri gasps in terror and his shoulders shake with a sob as he presses his legs together as tightly as he can. Victor glares at Anna who winces awkwardly. 

“Sorry, I got excited. Women usually like to hear that things will be quick.”

“It won’t be quick for me?” Yuuri whines.

“The anesthetists are busy on the other floor... And you know once your legs are numb you won’t be able to move from your bed anymore so sometimes women prefer to wait.”

“I don’t really feel like going for a run right now…” Yuuri pouts.

“Don't worry, we'll take care of you before things get serious.”

Yuuri reluctantly agrees to let Victor leave the room behind Anna, but makes sure he keeps his phone in his hand the whole time.

 

Yuri is leaning against the reception desk, his hood over his hair and his head down to look at his phone. “Is she born yet?” he asks when he sees Victor.

Victor has a weak smile. “No, but it could be anytime now,” he says as he drops his keys in Yuri’s open hand.

“Don’t forget to text me afterwards.”

“You want to see Yuuri?” 

Victor would have liked to bring Yuuri a bit of distraction, but when he finishes his sentence he figures Yuuri probably does not want to be seen half naked and whimpering in his pillow.

“Nah,” Yuri shrugs, “I’m not staying, I’ve already seen Alien.”

Victor grabs Yuri by the chin and forces him to look up. “If you say that again in front of Yuuri I’ll let Georgi create your next program.”

Yuri grunts. “Whatever.”

 

In the elevator on the way back to Yuuri’s room, Victor looks at his reflection in the mirror wall. He does not check if his bangs are nice and tidy. He does not smooth the wrinkles in his shirt. He does not even try to arrange his sleeves that are messily pushed up his forearms and keep falling back on his wrists like sad accordions. 

His chest is tight with stress. He has this strange apprehension, this stress mixed with impatience that wakes old memories in his mind. It feels like he was training for a big competition and somehow the event got brought forward two weeks and he has not had the time to finish preparing his programs. 

The weak light of the elevator gives his skin a dirty yellow tint and makes him look old and sick. He cannot help but think that probably the next time he takes this elevator he will have a daughter, and the happiness of this little baby will depend on his ability to be a good father, and that is a jump he has never landed before. 

He thinks about Yuuri, who is in pain, and terribly anxious, because he has to undergo surgery and he fears for his baby. Victor cannot help but feel guilty to be such a coward when his husband had been dealing with all the stress in the world without complaining. For almost nine months Yuuri has been quietly creating a new life in his belly while napping and eating ice cream on the couch, and sometimes it felt like nothing was more natural for him than rubbing his stomach and feeling the little movements under his skin.

Victor shakes his head to clear his mind. He wishes he could fast forward to after Yuuri’s operation, like he has sometimes hoped to skip the competition and be on the podium already, but he knows there exists no such shortcut. 

The elevator beeps and the doors tremble before opening. Victor squares his shoulders, has a last glance at the man in the mirror, and takes a big step to walk out.

 

Time passes under the neon lights of the hospital and Victor watches his husband without a word. He tries to make small talk but Yuuri could not care less about the change of costume of the Russian ice dancers or the strange noise of the coffee machine in the hospital hallway. 

Yuuri lies on his bed and waits, from time to time he whimpers or grunts, and Victor wishes he could take his pain away. Yuuri tries his best not to whine too much not to worry Victor, but the strength of the contractions sometimes surprises him and he finds himself hiding his face in his pillow to muffle his moans. He feels ashamed to be already so affected, when Anna said he was not even in a serious stage of labor. He cannot help but shiver at the thought of it getting worse. 

He feels a new cramp seize his abdomen and leans against Victor. Before he knows it he is holding onto him for dear life, and Victor, unable to remain silent, awkwardly tries to find comforting words.

“Just let your breath wash away the past five hours and let’s begin this birth anew now, at the beginning.”

Yuuri stops whimpering, looks up, and blinks in disbelief. “Victor,” he pants. “This is the stupidest sentence I’ve read in the whole five books we have, and you had to choose this one?”

Victor pinches his lips and shrugs with a sorry smile. Yuuri sighs, lies on his side, and hugs a pillow. Victor takes his hand. “How about… I love you?” he whispers softly as he kisses his fingers. “You’re doing great. I’m proud of you. You’re going to be a great father. You’re beautiful. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be your husband. You’re strong. You can do it.”

Yuuri tightens his fingers in Victor’s hand. He smiles. “Say it again?”

 

Sadly for them, the little comforting break is short-lived for Yuuri, and he soon asks Victor not to speak any more to let him focus on whatever his body is doing. The time he has to rest between the cramps is getting shorter and shorter and he now barely manages to catch his breath when he is not in pain. 

“Can you call Anna?” he asks through clenched teeth after a contraction that did not feel like the others. Things are happening in his stomach and he does not even want to think about what exactly he is feeling. 

“She said she’d come back soon,” Victor coos as he brushes Yuuri’s hair and bends to kiss his temple. 

Yuuri moves away and shakes his head. His cheeks are hot and his breath short. “Something’s wrong, find her please.”

“She’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“VICTOR!” Yuuri cries as he presses his hands on his stomach and crumples the fabric of his gown. “Your baby’s trying to get out of my BODY! FIND! ANNA!” 

Victor flinches at Yuuri’s angry and terrified eyes, disappears behind the door, and comes back a moment later dragging Anna by the wrist.

“Yuuri, I was here, like, fifty minutes ago and you were barely at four centimeters,” she scolds as she rolls her eyes, “we have a premature delivery in the next room and-“

She stops when she sees Yuuri on all fours on his bed, his head down and his legs spread as he slowly rocks back and forth on his knees. Victor’s heart tightens painfully when he realizes how red Yuuri’s face is, how his forehead glimmers with sweat, and his arms shake as he rests his body weight on his hands and arches his back. He has hardly ever seen Yuuri reach the limits of his stamina, and seeing him so spent and still struggling makes his chest ache with worry.

Anna checks the graph of the baby monitor. She pales and takes the ultrasound probe. “Yuuri? I need you to lie on your back,” she asks softly. 

Yuuri whimpers in protest, and shivers when he feels Victor’s hand lightly run down his spine and rest on his lower back. He looks up and Victor brushes his cheek, and bends to kiss him on the forehead. It is a light peck on his skin, short and innocent, but it reminds Yuuri that he is not alone, and it helps him to open his eyes and calm down enough to roll on his back. Victor holds his hand without a word, draws patterns on his skin with his thumb and sometimes kisses his palm. Yuuri holds on to him with all his strength to try and stay still enough to let Anna examine his stomach. 

She frowns at the screen for a brief instant and her eyes widen. “Oh wow… That was quick, erm ok,” she stammers. “We’ll get you ready for surgery, I’ll find the anesthetist.”

“There’s time for me now?” Yuuri asks in a breath. 

“Erm… You’re the emergency now,” she admits in embarrassment.

It takes the anesthetist ten minutes to get to their room, and Yuuri has the time to regret every decision he has ever taken in his life that brought him to this exact moment. His face is distorted with pain, and sounds Victor has never heard before escape him despite his clenched jaw. He does not remember ever feeling so much pain and fear in his life, nothing he has read could have prepared him for it, and it is getting worse by the minute. Any trace of willpower or strength he had left is gone as he prays for his misery to end. 

“I can’t do it,” he says in a broken moan as he pulls on Victor’s shirt. “I give up, make it stop!”

Victor cannot help but clench his teeth, because at this moment there is not a thing on earth he would not give to make Yuuri’s pain disappear.  He cannot believe that he let Yuuri go through this willingly, and his own guilt makes him want to run away so he never has to face his husband again. 

Yuuri whines and sobs, and Victor tries his best to look calm and composed.

“Yuuri, you’re almost there, it’ll be over soon, I promise.”

“I don’t want to! Make it stop!”

“Do it for me?”

“It’s all your fault!”

Victor tilts his head to the side. “You were there too if I recall correctly…”

“It’s your fault!” Yuuri repeats as he presses his nails in Victor’s forearm. “You and your giant-“

“Yeah ok,” Victor cuts, “that was me, I’m sorry.”

“It’s Minako’s fault too,” Yuuri mumbles before he contorts himself in pain again, and Victor frowns as he fears Yuuri is losing his mind.

“Minako?” 

For a few seconds Yuuri is inside his own head, closing his eyes, and focusing on his stomach and the efforts of his muscles, biting his lip as he waits for the pain to go away. “She talked me into skating and then I fell in love with you and now I’m fat…” he whines when the contraction finally ends. “I just wanted to do ballet not to get pregnant.”

“You won’t be pregnant very long anymore.”

“You’re the worst coach ever.”

“Do it for the baby?”

Yuuri pouts and whimpers again. He has had almost sixth months to get used to the idea of the epidural, he knows it is that or a general anesthetic and he does not want to miss a second of the birth of his baby, but now he feels almost nauseous when Anna comes back with the anesthetist. Victor does not seem overconfident either, and when he is asked to help Yuuri sit up, Yuuri is certain his husband will pass out in right front of him. 

But Victor holds on and manages to stay up until the procedure is over. He watches Anna close the door behind the anesthetist and herself, and he is paler than ever when he looks up at Yuuri and has a sorry wince. “I’ll just… sit down a minute if you don’t mind,” he mutters, before falling in the nearest chair and hiding his face in his hands.

Yuuri does not mind, because he has lain back in his pillows and he can already feel his legs become numb, and the relief is so nice he wonders if they have also numbed his brain. He watches Victor rub his eyes and cheeks and breathe slowly, and it is ten good minutes before he stands back up. He walks up to Yuuri and kisses him on the forehead. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how you’re doing this.”

“Me neither,” Yuuri smiles.

 

“You can come in but if you faint we’ll leave you on the floor and push you out of the way,” Anna says abruptly. “We don’t have time to take care of you today, Yuuri and the baby are our priorities.”

For a second in front of the surgical unit, it looks like Victor wants to say that he will stay outside and sit down a bit, maybe get a coffee and a magazine, and wait quietly until Yuuri is back. When Yuuri crushes his fingers and looks at him with wide scared eyes, Victor swallows painfully and takes the scrubs and the mask Anna is giving him.

Yuuri does not see anything because he has a blue sheet in front of him, and Victor makes sure to look at nothing but Yuuri’s face so he has a chance to stay on his feet. It is only when they both hear a tiny, broken, high-pitched scream that Victor dares to look behind the sheet, and his mouth opens in amazement.

“3:17 am,” someone says behind the blue curtain. 

Oh, she is all wrinkled, slimy, grey and purple, and it looks like she is very unhappy to see the world, but Yuuri cannot believe how fast his heart is beating when he sees his tiny crying baby for the first time. His smile is so wide his jaw hurts. 

“Hey there…” he whispers in awe, “Look at you… You’re perfect.”

Victor bends to kiss Yuuri’s forehead, and Yuuri looks up. “You are both perfect,” Victor mutters.

 

Despite his weak protests, they soon take Yuuri’s baby away from him. He watches Victor walk away behind Anna who is holding her, and he does not have the time or the energy to try and hold them back.

Victor follows Anna’s blue scrubs and the cries of the baby without really knowing what he is doing. He watches in awe when she weighs and measures her, and the baby keeps crying and fussing. Anna lifts and turns her to examine her, and Victor fears his baby might just break apart in her hands. The midwife puts her in a diaper and pushes a little hat on her head.

“Open your shirt,” Anna tells Victor, and he blinks in confusion. Maybe she was talking to someone else. It seems rather inappropriate, he must have misheard her. 

“Open your shirt to hold her against your skin so she’s warm while they take care of Yuuri,” she explains with a mocking roll of the eyes when Victor starts shaking his head. 

Before he knows it, he is pushed down on a reclining chair, the first buttons of his shirt are open, and Anna gives him the tiny crying baby. 

He wants to say something, but he is not sure what. Say that he does not know how to do this. That she should not let him have such a responsibility. That he is scared to do something wrong. But then his baby is on his chest and it seems that he can feel everything Yuuri has been talking about over the past few months. What it is like to feel her weight, to feel her move, to have her so close to his heart. He barely dares moving but he knows she can feel his heartbeat. She soon stops fussing and he cannot look away from her. He realizes how abstract everything still was for him until this very moment, where he holds her in his arms and feels her against his skin. He brushes her cheek with the tip of his fingers as to actually convince himself that she is real, and he feels all warm inside. He cannot help but lower his head to kiss her forehead. He finally understands how Yuuri has been glowing for six months. How could he not, if he was feeling this every day?

Yuuri is a bit dazed when he sees Victor again. His first instinct is to look for his baby, and Victor does not wait to lay her on his chest, and kiss every inch of Yuuri’s face as if he could express enough gratitude by kissing his nose five times. 

They are soon back in their room, where they find themselves alone with their baby for the first time. Yuuri holds her close, and suddenly remembers that she has already been waiting for him for almost an hour. He hesitates, looks around, and finally opens his gown. Tentatively, he moves her to his side, helps her a little bit, and watches in awe when she latches on his nipple. For a second he raises his eyebrows and blushes in embarrassment at what he is doing, but it feels unexplainably right and soothing to feed his baby and see her warm and safe against his chest. He shyly glances at Victor for fear his husband might find him weird, but Victor has the fondest, almost encouraging smile. Yuuri adjusts the blanket over his baby so she does not get cold and relaxes in his bed. 

Feeling a crushing wave of exhaustion after a lot of stress, he closes his eyes, and for a moment it looks like both he and his newborn are sleeping. Victor brushes a strand of hair that is stuck with sweat to his temple and kisses his forehead. Yuuri’s eyelids flutter and his face lights up. He looks up and has a tired but happy smile. “Happy Birthday Victor.”

And Victor frowns and opens his mouth to speak, but Yuuri is right. Yuri’s free skate was on the twenty-fourth. After long hours in the hospital, they did not pay attention to the time, but it is now past four in the morning on the twenty-fifth of December. Victor looks at Yuuri, and at his baby, and he has no words to express what he is feeling. Maybe his eyes water a little bit, but it is because he is tired. Yuuri smiles again and extends his hand to gently wipe a tear off his husband’s cheek.

 

At first, it looks like Yuri was right and Yuuri’s baby is bald, but upon further inspection, it appears that she has the thinnest, lightest, blond hair on the top of her head under her baby hat. It is so light that it looks like it is white under the neon lights. Her eyes are too dark to be icy blue, and Yuuri knows they will probably darken in the following weeks. She is a small baby but her cheeks are already full and round.

Anna comes in a bit later, when they have had time to observe their baby from every angle, to touch her tiny toes and gently brush her back with the light tip of a finger. Yuuri knows he could look at her for hours without getting bored. Every time she makes a little move, every time she takes a breath, every time she opens her eyes, he feels like his heart beats stronger. She is so small and fragile that he is scared to hurt her if he holds her too tight, but he feels like he needs to cradle her and have her close to him every second. She wraps her thin fingers around his pinky and he has never felt so much love in such an innocent moment.

“Yuuri? Victor?” Anna asks, and she cannot help but smile when they both look at her, because they look like they’ve been to hell and back, but also like it is the best day of their life. “I need a name,” she says happily.

Victor straightens to walk up to her and give her the name they have chosen, but Yuuri catches his wrist. “Wait! Can you give us a minute please?” he asks Anna. She nods and leaves the room silently.

“You changed your mind?” Victor asks, surprised.

Yuuri pinches his lips in a guilty pout. “That’s silly but… Can you give me the clipboard over there please?” 

Victor frowns but gives Yuuri the clipboard that Anna has left in the room. Yuuri scribbles in the corner of the first sheet. Two Japanese characters that are not one of the few Victor can recognize. 

“If you write it like this…” Yuuri mutters as he finishes the second character, “it means ‘snow’, and ‘blessing’.”

He looks up to see his husband’s reaction. “That’s very fitting,” Victor agrees, “but erm… how… how do you read it?”

Yuuri has a small chuckle and looks down at his daughter. “Yukie. Yukie Victornova Katsuki-Nikiforov.”

  
  


 

“She looks like a potato.” 

Yuri does not really know what he was expecting, but the whole thing feels rather anticlimactic. It is late in the morning, Yuuri has given birth only hours earlier and is still hooked to his IV drip and stuck in his bed. He looks like he has not slept in a week but wears a stupid dumbstruck smile behind his glasses. Victor has had a chance to take a shower before the visit hours and looks slightly more presentable than his husband, to the latter’s jealousy, but he has the same idiotic face that probably hurts his cheeks and will give him wrinkles around the eyes. The baby is wrapped in a blanket and she looks like an angry beetroot, red, upset, and barely opening her puffy eyelids. Otabek has said polite congratulations to Victor and Yuuri, and complimented the cuteness of the baby, but Yuri is not having it. 

“Victor, are you sure it’s yours?” he winces. “She really looks like Katsudon pushed her out of his bu-“

Victor gives him a sharp slap on the back of the head and Yuuri chokes on his own spit, coughs loudly, and whines as he rubs his painful stomach. Victor takes Yukie’s hat off, revealing a fluff of white hair, and Yuri cannot help but raise an eyebrow. Victor watches him as he puts his hand in the crib to touch her. Very carefully, he pokes her hand with the tip of his finger. At the touch, she wraps her tiny hand around his forefinger and Yuri does not dare to move. He blushes and wiggles his finger to free himself. She gasps in her sleep. He keeps staring at her and after a while whispers to Otabek, who shakes his head slowly.

“You can’t have this one Yuri. We… We can… maybe later I guess, but this one is Yuuri and Victor’s. We can get a fourth cat if you want.”

“A fourth cat? I thought you only had one?” Victor asks curiously. 

Otabek looks up and his eyes express the deepest resignation. “We adopted another one after we learned about Yuuri’s pregnancy this summer, and a third one when he had his labor scare in November.”

There is a small cry and they all turn to see Yukie fussing in her blanket. 

“What’s wrong with her?” Yuri asks, half annoyed by the noise, half concerned that he made her cry.

“Nothing, she’s hungry,” Yuuri says, and Victor picks up his baby to bring her to his husband. He kisses her on the forehead and has the largest, dumbest grin Yuri has ever seen. “Hello hungry, I’m dad,” he says happily.

Yuri pretends to gag behind Victor, and Otabek pushes him out of the room to give Yuuri some privacy.

 

Yuri and Otabek visit again with the rest of the Russian team the day after, when Yuuri has had time to sleep, wash himself, and trade his hospital gown for actual clothes. Yakov hugs Victor tighter than the time he won the Olympics and Victor blushes to his ears. Lilia keeps her usual sharp and severe expression, but when Victor holds out his baby for her to take, there is something in her eyes that reminds Yuuri that pregnancy rarely fits in a ballerina’s career. Mila takes advantage of a minute where everybody looks at Yukie to turn to Yuuri with a serious and concerned frown. “Did it hurt? How bad does a contraction hurt? Does the epidural hurt?”

 

Forty-eight hours after the delivery, Yuuri’s family arrives at the hospital. Yuuri knows they have had to close the hot springs without notice, and pack what they could to jump in the first plane after he called them two weeks before the due date. Victor has helped them book hotel rooms in St Petersburg, but it was still quite an adventure. Yuuri feels embarrassed that they had to rush everything but he is so proud to show them his baby that he cannot wait for them to arrive. His heart swells when his mother holds Yukie in her arms.

“She is so small and chubby like Yuuri was!” Hiroko coos. “Do you remember Toshiya?”

“I remember,” Mari says with a smile. “We thought he’d be short and fat all his life.”

“Mari!” Yuuri growls in embarrassment.

“I should have told you Yuuri,” Hiroko says softly, ”both you and your sister were early, I should have known you probably wouldn’t make it till January.”

“It’s ok, we were just a bit surprised,” Yuuri smiles as he looks up at Victor, who still sometimes has moments of wavering as he recalls the recent events.

 

On the third day Victor leaves to pick up a couple of things at their apartment and Yuuri takes the opportunity for a nap. He wakes up when he hears voices behind the door of his bedroom. The handle turns and Lena glances inside.

“Yuuri? You have visitors.”

“I’m not expecting any-“

“They say they’re family.”

Yuuri shakes his head because his family has already visited in the morning and will only come back the day after, but Lena is already opening the door. Yuuri frowns and grabs his glasses. He glances at his baby who is in the cot next to the bed, but too far for him to take her without getting out of bed. He feels strangely exposed and threatened. When he looks up Lena is gone, and two people are standing next to the door. 

Yuuri’s jaw falls slack. He blinks and stays there motionless, gaping at the visitors like they are from another planet. He has never seen them before but he does not need any introduction. There is a man, tall and lean, and a woman, stiff and spare. Her lips are pinched in an intent self-righteous look Yuuri knows too well. Her hair is pulled up in a vintage updo. Silver strands frame her pale cheeks and enhance the piercing blue of her eyes.

Yuuri wants to say something, he knows that seconds are passing and he keeps staring in the most impolite way, but no word comes out of his mouth. His throat is dry and his mind completely blank. 

His baby starts fussing and they all look at her in her tiny bundle of blankets. Yuuri wants to stand up and cradle her in his arms but he suddenly feels weirdly self-conscious to get out of the bed with just the pajama he slept in in front of strangers. His visitors don’t look much more at ease. For an instant it seems that the woman will walk to the cot and take the baby, but she changes her mind and remains unnaturally stoic. Yuuri stays there against his pillows, unable to move, letting the visitors stare at him and his messy hair, his dark circles, and his gaping mouth. 

Yuuri has hardly ever felt more relieved than when Victor opens the door of the room. Victor looks around, pauses for a second on the visitors and drops his bag on a chair. Had Yuuri not known every trait of Victor’s face better than his own, he would have missed the glimpse of surprise that Victor hid behind his bangs. 

Victor does his best to stay impassive, walks to the cot to take his crying newborn, and gives her to Yuuri. It is only when she calms down and Yuuri looks at him with big questioning eyes that Victor runs a hand through his hair and straightens up.

“You need to leave,” he abruptly tells the visitors.

“We have the right to see her,” the woman says.

Victor blinks in disbelief. “You have no right at all.”

“You asked us to come.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You would not have told us if you didn’t want us to come.”

“I’d like you to leave.”

“We’re her family!” the man insists.

“You’re no one’s family you-“

“Victor,” Yuuri cuts, and he tilts his head toward his baby, who is red in discomfort and starts crying again already at the loud voices in the room.

“Victor,” the woman whispers softly, “she looks so much like you when you were born…”

Victor ignores the comment, opens the door wide, and gestures for the couple to follow him in the hallway. 

Yuuri has time to nurse and have his baby fall asleep in his arms before Victor comes back in the room, alone. He opens the bag he brought from home and takes out the clothes he picked up for Yuuri.

“Are you going to pretend nothing happened?” Yuuri asks when Victor starts talking about Makkachin and how she’s bored because Yuri does not want to play with her when he visits. 

Victor sighs. “I’m sorry they disturbed you. They know someone who works here and who told them that they saw me in the lobby yesterday. Lena thought she was doing us a favor by letting them in.”

“You told them about me?”

Victor pinches his lips and lets his head down. “I… I had a moment of… doubt. Of weakness. When we came back after seeing your family in Japan, I contacted them to explain what was happening. I felt bad that your family did so much for us and I had nothing to bring from my side. I thought maybe it would change something for them that we were having a baby. With hindsight it was… ridiculous. They must have thought the same thing it because they never answered, and I was kind of relieved they didn’t, to be honest.”

“You never told me anything.”

Victor has a slight shrug and looks away.

“You didn’t want to tell me?” Yuuri insists.

“There was nothing to be told.”

“They still came…”

“Because they consider that you’re a woman now and so I’m not really married to a man,” Victor blurts angrily.

Yuuri pauses and brushes Victor’s hair thoughtfully. “We can talk about it later? When you feel like it?”

“I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t have to be tonight. It can be… in a few weeks or… a few months…”

Victor bends to kiss Yukie on the forehead. “Maybe.”

 

Yuuri is allowed to leave the hospital on the morning of the fifth day. Lena spends a whole hour giving him instructions on recovery and future appointments for him and his baby.

“… And no sex before we’ve discussed birth control, ok?” she concludes. 

Yuuri blinks. “Birth control?”

“We could consider a hysterectomy so you don’t have to bother about it.”

Yuuri winces at the thought of another operation and Lena shrugs. “You don’t have to think about it right now. Not as long as your husband keeps his hands to himself,” she says as she looks up behind Yuuri at Victor, who is picking up their belongings around the room.

He flips his bangs to the side and smiles. “I didn’t do that with my hands though.”

 

Yuuri is upset to see that the pants he wore when arriving at the hospital still fit nicely on his hips. He focuses on swaddling his baby in a warm blanket so she does not feel the freezing air of the last day of the year in St Petersburg. They sign the checkout forms and Yuuri puts on his coat. Anna and Lena assure they will see him often in the following months. 

Victor carefully picks up the baby seat and makes sure that Yukie is comfortably nestled in the blankets. She is almost invisible under a thick hat and a fluffy cover, and sleeps so soundly she does not react when they leave the hospital room. 

When they walk down the hallway of the maternity ward, the nurses stop and turn to look at them. For a second Yuuri is anxious, but then a nursing assistant smiles. Yuuri looks up and the others are also smiling, warm smiles that make his heart swell. He knows that despite their discretion, all the staff has seen him and Victor walk in and out of the hospital for six months, spend a night when he thought he was in labor, and carry his belly around for hours before his delivery. He blushes as he walks past them. He thinks that it is embarrassment, but Victor takes his hand, and Yuuri realizes that he has never felt so proud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no words to explain why it took so long, I'm just sorry. It was just life I guess. I'm not going to give any deadline for the chapter winter 2 and the short epilog, I'm working on them. I hope you understand and you still enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. <3
> 
> -TheSprout


	5. Winter 2

When they open the door to their apartment, Makkachin comes to meet them, and Victor has to hold the baby seat out of reach and push his dog back so she does not jump on Yuuri. Makkachin sniffs them for long seconds before whining and sitting back.

Yuuri watches Victor take the baby to visit every room, blissfully uncaring for the fact that she is sound asleep and has no idea of what is going on. He is far too excited for Yuuri, who stays awake just long enough to feed his baby and falls asleep on the couch in the middle of the afternoon. Victor makes proper introductions between his baby and his dog and neither of them seems as enthusiastic as he is. Yukie sleeps in her baby seat as quietly as her father on the sofa and Makkachin is very confused by the new human her owner has brought back home.

When they go to bed that night Yuuri feels strangely excited despite his exhaustion. He is glad to find his bed and his pillow again, to sleep next to Victor and enjoy the warmth of his body against his skin. He is still sore and stomach hurts if he is not careful, but he feels like being at home is soothing all his troubles. 

“Happy new year,” Victor says as he kisses Yuuri on the forehead and lets his head fall on his pillow. 

“It’s 10:30.”

Victor yawns. “I don’t know about you but I don’t think if I’ll be awake at midnight.”

Yuuri smiles and after a second he turns on his side to face his husband. “What a year…”

Victor chuckles. “It was… not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know... The four continents, then the worlds, and then… a new season again?”

“I don’t think I’d have believed it if someone had told me we’d have a baby by the end of the year…”

Victor shakes his head. “We couldn’t know.”

“At first I… I felt so bad,” Yuuri confesses quietly. 

Victor props himself up on his elbow. “Why?”

“I felt like we had been irresponsible. I felt terrible that I had not taken care of my baby during the first months, I was scared she would suffer from it. I couldn’t believe I was putting you in that situation.”

Victor laughs. “Me? You kept being sick, sleeping through the day, and not being able to stand upright without having a dizzy spell, and it was all because of me… I thought you’d never let me see  you again after that.”

“The worst was when I understood that I didn’t want to abort...”

“Why?”

“I thought you’d think I was crazy. I thought I was crazy! I thought you would find me disgusting and  my family would reject me to avoid shame but I… I just couldn’t do it.”

Yuuri pinches his lips tightly and Victor cradles him against his chest. “Hey… It’s over now.”

“I know,” Yuuri mutters, but he lets Victor hold him another minute. “It went so fast… I feel like yesterday we were still in your old apartment.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think I’d become a father so soon, especially since we missed the first months.”

“I’m sorry I rushed you into this.”

“I was just worried about you… You know I’ve always wanted children.”

“I feel weird thinking I’m a father… I still feel like I’m just a student sometimes.”

Victor exaggerates a wince. “I was seriously counting on you to be the responsible one.”

“We’ve been doing ok so far.”

“Only seventeen years and 360 days to go!”

Yuuri frowns. “Do you plan to kick her out when she turns eighteen?”

“No!... When she starts skating in juniors at thirteen she’ll move out to follow her coach like Yuri and I did.”

Yuuri gasps in horror, and Victor bites his lips with a smile. “I’m sorry, I’m joking,” he says as he hugs Yuuri again. 

“What if she doesn’t want to skate?”

Victor shrugs. “I just want her to be happy.”

“Me too.”

Yuuri adjusts his head on the pillow to snuggle against Victor. He gets a minute to try and fall asleep before a small cry rises from the next room and he smiles without opening his eyes. “I think there’s a good chance for us to be awake at midnight.”

 

The first days at home with Yukie feel very special. They sleep at strange hours. They eat whatever they have at hand. They forget to get the mail. They take thousands of pictures. Yuuri tries to rest but he breastfeeds almost every three hours. He keeps thinking that it is disturbingly strange to see his baby latch on his nipple when he actually barely has breasts, but Yukie does not seem to mind, and Victor is still fascinated every time he watches him nurse. He has bought a breast pump but still looks at the device warily, although he knows that he will soon be tired of getting up in the middle of the night. 

Yuuri and Victor find themselves full of worry, either Yukie is crying or not. On her third day at home, Yukie sleeps through the afternoon and they find that very concerning.

“Is she breathing?” Victor asks as they look down in the crib.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to wake her up but she has not moved at all in like ten minutes…” Yuuri answers uncomfortably. 

Victor bends over his baby. “I can’t hear her breathe.”

Just when Yuuri puts his arms in the crib to take her, Yukie has the tiniest twitch in her sleep and tilts her head a millimeter to the side. The couple has a silent sigh of relief and Yuuri wonders if he is becoming crazy.

 

It is the middle of the night a few days after their return home, and Yuuri feels like he has only closed his eyes for a minute when he hears the high-pitched cry of his newborn through the wall. He waits a moment and then hears Victor mumble under the blanket.

“s’not my turn…”

Yuuri blinks in the dark. He gives Victor another minute but his husband does not move an inch. 

“Victor?” he whispers. 

No answer. 

“Victor!” 

“Hm?”

“I think it’s your turn, because my turn lasted 9 months, and at the end I had contractions for eight hours, and then they cut my stomach open, and-“

Victor rolls to the side of the bed and almost falls off as he sits up. “I’m up! I’m up…” he yawns. “Look, I’m already there,” he says as he stands up too quickly and his legs wobble. 

Yuuri waits a minute and falls back asleep when he hears the cries fade. 

In the morning the bed is cold on Victor’s side. Yuuri silently pushes the door to the baby’s room and finds Victor asleep in the armchair, holding his baby against his chest, both covered with a thick and fluffy blanket. Yuuri kisses Victor on the top of his head to wake him up. Victor barely has time to open his eyes before Yukie gets red and starts whining. 

“Oooh someone needs a clean diaper and a nice breakfast,” Victor mumbles as he stretches one arm at a time and holds Yukie in place with the other.

“Can you change her? I’ll just eat something and feed her afterward.”

While Yuuri bites in a toast and fills up the kettle for tea, he hears Victor babble in the bedroom, and shakes his head with a smile.

“Aww that’s a stinky one!” Victor coos happily. “Look at what you’ve done! What a big poopy that is! Wow! No don’t put your feet in it! Oh no here we go… Yes I know, the wipe is cold, but we’ve got to clean you everywhere! It’s almost over just let me put cream so you don’t get all red… And there you go, all clean!”

There’s a silence while Victor chooses the outfit of the day, which is always a very important matter although Yukie barely ever leaves the apartment, and usually burps or drools on herself within the first two hours after being dressed.

“I think I’ve seen every possible color of poop,” Victor notes blandly as he walks in the living room with his baby and gives her to Yuuri.

“Was it still green?”

“No, more like... yellowish.”

Yuuri wonders when exactly he started worrying about the color of excrement and shrugs. “Good.”

 

Yuri rubs his sneaker on the carpet in the hallway. He has rung the bell twice and Victor still has not opened the door. They said that he could come and visit and now they do not let him in. He takes out his phone to send Otabek a text to tell him how annoyed he is. Just when he presses ‘send’, the door opens, and Yuri cannot help but take a step back. 

Victor stands in the doorway, and looks so not like Nikiforov that Yuri has to double take. Victor’s T-shirt screams that he has been living and sleeping with it for at least four days. There is dried vomit on his shoulder and a long coffee stain over his belly button. His hair is messy, strands stuck together on one side and flat on the other as if he had just been sleeping on this exact spot. He has pushed a burp cloth in the pocket of his sweatpants and has not bothered to put on socks. When Yuri looks up Victor’s eyes are only half open and his dark circles are down to his cheeks. On top of everything, Victor still seems happy to see Yuri, and has a weird zombie smile that gives Yuri chills.

“Wow.”

“Sorry. Yukie cried all night… non-stop,” Victor starts, and his eyes widen like he still cannot believe that it is possible to cry that much. “But that means she’s sleeping now and… I was napping.”

“I can come back another time.”

Victor waves his hand. “No, it’s ok,” he yawns, “I think Yuuri woke up too, I’ll make some tea. Come in.”

Yuri tries to find a spot on the couch where there is no bib or abandoned pacifier. Yuuri drags his feet out of the bedroom and looks about as tired as his husband, and when the two of them meet in the kitchen and hug lengthily, Yuri fears they might have fallen back asleep on each other’s shoulder.

“Do you have a scar?” he asks when Yuuri sits in front of him and Victor brings the teapot.

Yuuri nods. “It’s under the waistband of my underwear, I can’t show you.”

Yuri winces. “When can you train again? You’ll diet?”

“Not before a few weeks... I’m breastfeeding so I’m losing weight rather quickly right now, I’ll see if I’m still fat in a few months.”

They barely have time to go over the events of the last few days when a shy babble rises from the baby’s room.

“Aaand there we go,” Victor sighs, not without a little smile.

“Can I see her?” Yuri blurts despite himself.

He cannot help but be surprised when he bends over the crib. Although it has only been a bit over a week, he feels like the baby has changed a lot since he last saw her at the hospital. She was red and puffy, hunched up and barely moving, and now her skin has lightened, and she is perfectly awake. Her eyes are wide open and look at him curiously.

“She’s pink.”

“Considering her hair she might become as pale as Victor,” Yuuri says as he bends to pick her up. “You want to hold her?”

“No,” Yuri says, and he extends his arms to take the baby. For a moment he can’t look away. She is swaddled in a creme blanket and her thin white hair has been tousled during her sleep and forms a pale halo around her head. Her smell is a soft and unique mix of baby shampoo, laundry soap, and chamomile. 

For Yuri, Victor had never been anything else than a skater. He lived to skate and skated to live, and that was about all there was to it. But now it seems that Victor could hang up his skates and still have a reason to be happy. Suddenly, this idea puts his whole career into perspective, and Yuri cannot help but wonder if there is also something more to his own life than his medals.

He is taken out of his contemplation quite brutally. “He… help…” he calls when Yukie grabs a handful of his hair and pulls his head down without letting go. Yuuri chuckles and untangles her little fingers from the blond strands.

“What the fuck? She’s super strong!” Yuri growls.

“She just grabs everything she can reach… Watch out for the drawstring of your hoodie, she tried to strangle Victor with his sweater.” 

“Cool.”

When they walk out of the bedroom, the microwave beeps and Victor hands Yuri a bottle. “Sit on the couch, she’s hungry.”

“It’s like, 3 pm.”

Yuuri smiles at his innocence. “She eats every two hours, day or night.”

Yuri stands with the baby in his arms and one hand awkwardly holding the bottle that Victor gave him. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Just hold the bottle so the nipple is full of milk and she doesn’t swallow air. She’ll let you know when she’s done eating.”

“It’s your baby, you do it.”

Victor holds his hands up and shakes his head. “No thanks, I’ve done it all night long already.”

Yuri carefully sits down and brings the bottle to the baby’s mouth. After a minute he relaxes as he realizes that it is very easy and that he has nothing to do but hold the baby with one hand and the bottle with the other. Her big eyes are still staring at him and he feels strangely self-conscious. When the bottle is almost empty she winces and turns her head away. 

“Why is she still not happy?” Yuri asks with concern.

“Hold her up, she needs to burp.”

Yuri barely has time to put down the bottle before Yukie regurgitates half of her meal on his sweater and does not even look sorry. 

“She puked on me!” he whines as he holds her as far away from him as possible. “Is there anybody in this family who doesn’t throw up when I’m next to them?”

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri says as he plucks his baby from Yuri’s hands and Victor gives him a tissue, “I should have given you a cloth, I was distracted.”

Yuuri wipes his baby’s face and hands clean, and brushes her hair back into place with his fingers. Yuri winces in disgust when he watches him lift her to smell her diaper before cradling her against his chest. Yuri looks up and catches Victor looking at his husband and his daughter. His smile is soft, but his eyes sparkle with a joy that looks nothing like what Yuri was used to seeing when Victor was on a podium.

 

It is five in the morning almost ten days after their return home when Victor wakes up to the chilling sound of his baby crying as loud as her lungs will allow her. He rolls under the blanket but Yuuri is not in their bed, and he understands that he has to get up to see what is going on. He walks in the other bedroom and is not surprised to see Yuuri pacing in front of the crib, holding Yukie up against his chest and rocking her gently. It is only when Victor comes up to them that he realizes that Yukie is not the only one crying. Yuuri’s cheeks are wet with big tears that roll down his chin.

"Yuuri what's wrong?" 

Yuuri sniffles loudly and wipes his nose with the back of his hand. "She keeps crying and I don't know what to do to help her," he sobs. "I just want her to stop, she looks so sad, she must be in pain or I don't know... I just want her to tell me what's wrong so I can help her..." 

Victor tries to take his baby but Yuuri tightens his embrace around her. "I changed her diaper, I fed her, and I tried to comfort her but she keeps crying so loud... I don’t think she likes me…" 

Victor takes Yukie from Yuuri's arms and picks up a pacifier in the crib. 

It is another twenty minutes of pacing around the living room before she calms down and falls asleep against Victor's shoulder, exhausted by so many tears and screams. He carefully lays her back in her crib and closes the door, before dragging Yuuri back into their bed, where he wraps him with the comforter and holds him tight.

“I know I should be happy,” Yuuri mutters, “we're so lucky, she's so perfect, but I don't know I... I don't feel it?"

Victor brushes Yuuri’s hair with the tip of his fingers without a word.

"I was so excited to meet her and now she's even cuter than I thought and I'm just so sad,” Yuuri says between two sniffles. “I can’t explain it... I feel like I don’t love her enough? What if she never loves me?”

Victor kisses the top of Yuuri’s head. “You love her. You love her more than you love yourself, I can tell. And she loves you, you’re the most important person in her life. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

Yuuri’s baby blues lasts another long week, where he cries because he is still fat, because his baby is so cute no one will ever believe he made it himself, and because Victor sat a little bit too far from him on the couch, and that surely means he wants to divorce. 

 

Makkachin sleeps on the rug in front of the crib, and sometimes comes to get Yuuri or Victor when Yukie wakes up and wiggles in her bed, so they can pick her up before she starts crying. Victor is eager to try their stroller when he takes the dog out, but Yuuri does not feel like walking farther than the couch, and has to remind Victor that the temperature is still negative and that it snows almost every day.

“She’s Russian, I don’t think she’ll be bothered by the cold,” Victor shrugs.

“She’s half Japanese and if I see you outside with her I’m putting her back in my stomach.”

 

Yukie soon manages to sleep several hours in a row on a daily basis. It is only a shame that she prefers to sleep during the day and eat and play in the middle of the night. As much as he loves his daughter, Yuuri soon lives in the fear of her tiny cries and shivers when he is woken up by her screams. Besides, he cannot help but notice that he tends to hear Yukie cry before Victor does. Sometimes he even wakes up at night for apparent no reason and has the strange instinct to get up to go and see her. He usually finds her wide awake, quietly wiggling in her crib and waiting for her next meal.

That night is one of those nights, and he knows that he has to go check on her, but he takes another minute in his bed. In the dark, he can see Victor’s face hidden in his pillow and he smiles fondly. He has hardly ever seen his husband so tired. Since the gynecologist forbade Yuuri to bend down and lift anything else than his baby, Victor has been in charge of practically everything around the house, from emptying the dishwasher to driving to the nearest store open on Sunday that sells diaper rash cream. Whenever Yuuri tries to help, Victor scolds him and asks him to lie down and rest. Yuuri does not mind being free to nap and breastfeed, but it has been a couple of weeks now, and his husband struggles to keep his eyes open during the day. At night they cuddle, and sometimes a little bit more, but both of them most often fall asleep before they get to serious business.

Yukie starts crying for good and Yuuri is taken out of his loving contemplation. Victor shudders in his sleep and mechanically drags himself to the side of the bed without really waking up. There is a dull thump and a low whine, and Yuuri understands that Victor has knocked his head on the nightstand. Yuuri wraps his arms around Victor’s chest, kisses his shoulder, and pulls him back in the bed.

“It’s ok, I’ll go,” he mutters in Victor’s ear before he pecks his temple.

Victor makes a sound that is halfway between a protest and a yawn, and is already out before Yuuri can answer.

Yuuri rolls up his T-shirt on his way to the bedroom. He has not managed to bring himself to buy actual nursing clothes, and his nipples actually feel so sore that he wishes he could walk around shirtless so no fabric rubs against them. When the leaking is too bad he wears a bralette, but at night he sacrifices his pajamas. 

He scoops Yukie up from her crib and sits deep in the armchair. It has been a while now but he does not think he will ever get used to the strange feeling he gets when he nurses. It is a tingle, a slight shiver under his skin that makes his chest feel warm and fuzzy. 

He adjusts the little blanket over Yukie and himself and lets his head fall back, without looking away from her. Her eyes are closed but she is sucking regularly, her fingers tangled in the fabric of his T-shirt. She falls back asleep in his arms and he keeps watching her, her tiny nose, her round cheeks, and her short hair. The room is almost completely dark, the door was left ajar and only a ray of moonlight comes from the living room. A nightlight shaped like a snowflake is plugged at the end of the crib and emits a very dim and warm glow. The night is quiet and Yuuri can hear Makkachin’s heavy breathing in the other bedroom. He feels tired but the calm is so precious that he does not want to fall asleep yet. Every day he thinks that Yukie cannot get cuter, and yet she always does.

He yawns and considers finishing his night in the armchair. He holds her against him a few more minutes and finally puts her back in her crib and goes back to his room. As he slides back in his bed, Victor turns in his sleep and rolls to snuggle against his chest. Yuuri brushes silver strands with his fingers and sighs, because Victor and his daughter are already far too similar, and he loves them both far too much. 

 

One morning they receive a small package in the mail, and Victor winces when he sees the handwriting of the address on the top. He doesn’t say anything and lets Yuuri open it. It’s a music box made of precious wood. It looks more like an art piece than a toy. Yuuri carefully opens the top of the box and a little paper falls out. Before he can catch the paper, the first notes start, and Yuuri stops to listen. It plays Once Upon a December.

“It’s gorgeous,” Yuuri mutters as he lets his finger run over the carving around the mirror on the lid of the box.

“It’s dismal,” Victor spits as he closes the box to stop the music. He hands Yuuri the piece of paper he has picked up from the floor. It reads “For Yukie, Grandma & Grandpa.”

Yuuri bites his lip uneasily. “They… are trying to be nice?”

“I know," Victor says coldly.

“Do you want to send it back?”

Victor pauses. His parents are definitely making efforts but will probably not try again if he sends the package back. What he actually wants is to throw the music box in the trash and never think about it again, but he has the strange feeling that he should not throw away the chance for Yukie to one day have loving grandparents on both sides of her family. He was convinced that nothing good could actually come from people like them, his own salvation being due to the fact that Yakov had taken him away at an early age, but the recent events have changed so many things in his life that he is not really sure of anything right now.

“No,” Victor finally says. “Just put it in a drawer or I don’t know… Somewhere I can’t see it”

“Should we reply, or... thank them?”

“I’ll call them later.”

That evening Victor spends a long time alone in the bedroom. Yuuri can hear the murmur of his voice through the wall but keeps watching TV and playing with Yukie without disturbing him. When Victor emerges from the room he looks preoccupied but not angry, and Yuuri takes it as a good enough sign and serves dinner without asking questions.

 

Victor has found that the best way to calm his baby is to hold her, and so he has invested in a carrier and walks around the apartment all day long with his baby strapped against his chest. 

“You don’t have to carry her all the time when we’re at home…” Yuuri notes.

“You carried her for nine months and I didn’t say anything, it’s my turn now.”

“What if want to hold her?”

“She’s sleeping, I don’t want to wake her up. You can have her later.”

Yuuri rolls his eyes and watches Victor caress his baby’s hair and kiss her on the forehead. He does not have the heart to argue further. 

 

Yuuri agrees for a walk late January, when the sun finally peeps through the clouds. Victor is almost as excited as his dog and spends half an hour deciding which coat Yukie will wear, while Yuuri wonders why they have five winter coats in a one-month-old size and what they will do with them once she grows out of them in a couple of weeks.

With hindsight, Yuuri thinks that he should have accepted to go out sooner, because he cannot get enough of Victor pushing a stroller and smiling at his baby. Yukie sleeps through the walk, lulled by the movements of the stroller and the quiet sounds of the park. She wakes up when they get home and Yuuri undoes several layers of clothes she was wearing. She gurgles and looks at Yuuri. There is something in her eyes that he has never seen before.

“Victor…” he calls as he looks at her on the changing table.

“Hm?”

“Look…”

Victor bends over his husband’s shoulder and grins. “She’s smiling!”

“She is!”

“Look at you!” Victor coos at his baby. Her smile widens, Victor keeps smiling, and it is like they are trying to see who can have the biggest grin. Yuuri’s can feel his heart tighten as he looks at them and he cannot decide who is the most adorable.

 

Yukie is barely a month old when Victor has to follow Yuri to the European championships in Moscow. Yuuri is still recovering and does not feel like traveling and staying at the hotel with his baby. Yuri insists that he does not need Victor since he will be in his home rink, but Yuuri pushes his husband out the door and tells him to only come back when he has a gold medal to show. He almost regrets it when Yukie cries all night long and, somehow, he feels likes Victor would have managed to calm her better than him. 

Yuri wins gold by a scandalously wide margin. The press conference follows like any other time, and Victor cannot wait for it to end so he can go back home to his family. Yuri is used to answering the questions so Victor texts Yuuri on his phone without really listening, until a journalist addresses him personally.

“Mr. Nikiforov…” 

Victor looks up and the man asks his question. 

“How is your baby doing?”

The room goes quiet and Victor cannot hide his surprise, he blinks and his eyebrows disappear behind his hair. While they have not really been hiding Yukie, they have never attended public events with her and never mentioned her in a public setting. It is unlikely that a member of the Russian team told the press about Yuuri’s pregnancy, and there is no way that their family or friends decided to do so without letting Yuuri know beforehand. It could be someone at the hospital, but if a nurse had wanted to break medical confidentiality, they could have done it far earlier. It is probably someone in their neighborhood who saw them at the park and started the gossip.

The flash of a camera blinds him for a second, and Victor is suddenly very glad that Yuuri and Yukie stayed at home. 

He stays silent for a moment, looks like he will say something but stops, and brushes his bangs to the side. He exchanges a glance with Yuri, who shrugs and has an embarrassed wince, and then looks back at the room of cameras. He understands that there is no point in trying to deny the news. He clears his throat.

“She's doing great, thank you.”

The crowd of journalists roars at the confirmation that Victor Nikiforov has a daughter.

“Can we have a picture of the baby?”

"Mr. Nikiforov, did you use a surrogate?”

“In which country did you adopt?” 

Victor blinks and has a desperate look into the nearest camera, as if he could see Yuuri look back at him from the TV in their apartment. He shakes his head and gestures to the people to calm down but they get even louder.

“Is it true that you had this child during an affair?” 

“Will your daughter take part to the 2032 Olympics?” 

“How much did you pay your surrogate?”

“Are you still in touch with the mother?”

Yuri grabs the microphone and pushes Victor aside. “SHUT UP! This is MY press conference about ME and MY MEDAL!”

The journalists ignore his intervention. “Will Yuuri Katsuki raise this child as his own?”

Yuri turns red in anger and stands up. “What the fuck do you not underst-’”

Victor puts his hand on Yuri's forearm and gently pulls him down so he sits back on his chair. Yuri mumbles something about cutting them with his skates if they keep asking stupid questions, and Victor has a reassuring nod. 

The room becomes silent again, the cameras focus on Victor and the microphones are held out not to miss a single one of his words. 

“I see that it’s not really a secret anymore,” he starts uneasily, “not that we’ve actually tried to keep it as such, but I’m still… surprised that the news spread so quickly.” He pauses, takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again his voice is much calmer. “Yukie was born December 25th and she is the best birthday present I've ever had. Yuuri and I are truly blessed, we have never been happier. I know that I’m not the most objective person but she is the loveliest baby, she… I mean, Yuuri says she looks a lot like me, but to me, she takes everything after him. ” A little whisper of confusion rises from the crowd but stops when Victor resumes with a smile. “I don’t know if we’ll have to buy white skates, so far we just try to enjoy every moment, sleep from time to time, and make sure she doesn’t want for anything.”

A hand goes up among the journalists, followed by a second, and soon a good dozen. 

Victor shakes his head. “I won't answer any more questions concerning my family, I’m sure you will understand. Yuuri and I are Yukie's parents and she's our daughter, this is all you need to know. If Yuuri wants to give you more details later he will, but in the meantime, I’ll ask you to respect our privacy.”

The hands go back down. A few people scribble, some nod quietly. When a journalist stands up to ask another question, Victor is relieved to hear that it's not about his baby. He however quickly tenses up again.

“Mr. Plisetsky, Jean-Jacques Leroy said he was sure to win the World Championship this year. Do you think you can beat him?”

“Leroy can go fuc-” 

Victor puts his hand over the microphone and sighs when Yuri's obscenities are still clearly audible for everyone in the room. 

“I think we've had enough questions for this time,” Victor concludes. “We will see you all again in March.” 

 

As soon as Victor comes back home that night, Yuuri drops Yukie in his arms and kisses him softly. “Welcome home.”

“Yuuri I-” Victor blurts, well aware that they have to talk about what happened during the press conference. “It was so sudden, I didn’t know what to tell them I-”

“It’s ok, you did great. They don't have to know everything.”

“But I didn’t know what you wanted me to say, I was afraid that if I told too much you would feel exposed, and if I told too little you’d think I’m ashamed of you and-”

“Victor,” Yuuri says quietly. “You said the right things. I wouldn’t have said them better. We can’t pretend that everybody would understand if we decided to tell them the whole truth. It was already complicated when we announced that we were getting married… I thought about it a lot and, well, they can think whatever they want, we don’t owe them any explanation on our private life. And as you said, if I feel like telling them more later, I will.”

“Really? It’s fine?”

“Yeah, more than fine now that you’re back home,” Yuuri assures with a warm smile. “She’s been missing you.”

Victor looks at Yukie. “Have you?” 

She babbles and tries to grab his scarf. 

“I’ve missed you too.”

 

Chris visits soon after the European Championships. He sleeps two nights on Victor and Yuuri’s couch and gets a glimpse of their new life as he watches each of them get up alternatively and drag their feet to the baby’s room. He sees Victor heat up a bottle of milk in the microwave at 3 am with his eyes closed, and wonders how someone would willingly inflict that to themselves. He understands when he sees the couple glow every time they look at their baby, when Victor smiles when he sees his husband holding their daughter, and when Yukie gurgles when one of her fathers picks her up from her crib. No one can resist her big bright eyes and her rosy cheeks. 

“It looks like she’ll look a lot like you,” Chris tells Victor when he watches him brush the thin white hair on his baby’s head. “She’ll be a beauty.”

From the kitchen Yuuri clears his throat. “Chris, I don’t know if you’re hitting on my husband or on my daughter but please stop, it’s very inappropriate.” 

 

The first days of February come just as cold as expected in St Petersburg. Victor stirs in his sleep. He rolls on his side and nestles his face in Yuuri’s neck. The blinds are pulled down so only a dim ray of sunlight shines in the room. The bed is warm and extremely comfortable. He sighs in contentment and is about to fall back asleep, when he gets a weird hint of doubt. He feels like he has forgotten something. 

When his brain finally registers that it is the middle of the afternoon, that he does not know how long he has been sleeping, and that if both Yuuri and he are in the bedroom, no one is with the baby, his heart skips a beat. He jumps out of the bed so fast that he gets dizzy and stumbles against the doorframe. When he manages to open the door he has to squint his eyes at the daylight in the living room. Someone is sitting on the couch. 

“One day your daddy is going to be completely bald and everybody will know I was ri-“

“Yuri?”

Yuri looks up and stands up from the couch. He is holding a bundle of covers and a little hand is trying to grab his hair. Victor frowns as his blurry memories fall into place.

“You invited me to come over after training, when I arrived you said you would check on katsudon because he was taking a nap, and then you never came back from the bedroom,” Yuri says when the wrinkles on Victor’s forehead almost reach his hairline. 

Woken up by Victor falling against the door a minute earlier, Yuuri has joined them in the living room to hear Yuri’s explanation. “Victor…” he whispers in reproach.

“I’m sorry, I think I just sat on the bed next to you and…I mean Yuri was here, it's not like she was alone,” he shrugs and has an apologetic wince.

“You’re the worst father ever,” Yuri says sternly.

“And you… you fed her?” Yuuri asks as he eyes the empty bottle on the coffee table.

“She started crying and that was the worst fucking sound I’ve ever heard so I picked her up and I took a bottle in the fridge, but she still cried so I changed her diaper. That was really disgusting by the way, I think you should see a doctor, it shouldn’t stink that bad.”

“You changed a diaper,” Victor deadpans.

“I figured if you can do it, it’s not rocket science.”

“You could have knocked at our door to wake us up,” Yuuri notes.

“And catch you trying to make another baby? I’ll pass.”

Yuuri walks up to Yuri to take his baby back. She’s drooling on her chin but looks very happy of her afternoon. She coos, and smiles, and gurgles, and Yuuri feels like he could hold a whole conversation with her. He looks up at Yuri, who is sniffing his hoodie suspiciously. “Can you come back tomorrow?”

 

The pediatrician has been informed of Yuuri’s peculiarity and welcomes the little family warmly for Yukie’s first visit. Yuuri blushes with pride when he says that Yukie is doing great and putting on weight just at the right pace. She can lift her head but does not seem too curious to see the world. Every time she calls, Yuuri’s mother tells Victor how Yuuri was a chubby baby who liked to sleep all day long, didn’t really care for exercising, and only woke up to eat. They do not worry too much that Yukie does not try to move around, and they take advantage of the long naps she takes during the day to rest and do house chores. 

 

Victor and Yuuri soon manage to find a routine around Yukie’s schedule and have almost decent nights. One day they don’t feel like cooking, and Victor convinces Yuuri to go out for dinner. They ask Yuri to babysit and he accepts a bit too eagerly.

“Ok, but I want 3000 rubles an hour.”

Victor scoffs. “For that price I could hire Yakov and she’d do a quad flip by the end of the night. Let’s say 3000 for the evening and you can eat whatever you want in the fridge for dinner.”

“Alright, but I’m doing it for Katsudon, not for you.”

“You love Yukie.”

“Shut up.”

When the time comes to leave the apartment, however, Yuuri suddenly feels extremely anxious, and Victor’s efforts to drag him outside are vain.

“You already know where the diapers are,” he tells Yuri hastily, “don’t forget the rash cream if she’s red, and there are three bottles ready in the fridge, just remember to heat them up but not too much! Be careful not to burn her! She should sleep until about 10pm and when she wakes up you can give her a bottle. If she can’t fall back asleep you can sing this lullaby that goes la lala la lala la-.”

“I’m not singing anything to anyone,” Yuri deadpans. 

“Trust me,” Victor mutters slightly bitterly, “when she’s been crying for three hours and it’s 4am, you sing.”

“You have my phone number,” Yuuri resumes with increasing worry, “and Victor’s, and the number of the pediatrician is on the fridge, as well as the emergency number. Don’t hesitate to call us if you have any problem, or if she looks like she misses us too much and she’s sad.”

Yuri sighs. “Or I can go out and have dinner with Victor, and you stay here to make sure she’s ok?”

Yuuri takes a second to consider the offer and nods. “Actually-”

He’s interrupted by Victor, who grabs his arm and pulls him in the hallway before he can take off his coat to stay home. “We have a reservation at 8, we’re going to be late. Yuri, if Yukie doesn’t spend the best night of her life, you can kiss your next season goodbye.”

 

While they wait for their orders at the restaurant, Yuuri realizes how long it has been since the last time they went out just the two of them like a regular couple. Ever since his pregnancy bump started showing they have been a bit reluctant to go out, and after his labor scare he didn’t move from home. It feels strange that nobody is watching him and no one suspects how crazy their last few months have been. Even Victor is just his usual self, not a worried husband or a stressed father, just a loving boyfriend who holds Yuuri’s hand over the table, and listens to him with a soft smile.

They eat too much and drink a little bit. Yuuri has a glass of wine, knowing that he will not have to feed Yukie that night.

They come home late and shoo Yuri out after making sure that their baby is still alive, and tiptoe to their bedroom, where they undress each other to sneak under the comforter. Victor feels slightly buzzed and lets his head fall heavily on the pillow with a content sigh. He’s about to fall asleep when Yuuri rolls to lie almost on top of him.

“Yuuri? Is there something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong…”

“Are you alright? I’ll go check on Yukie I-“

He is interrupted when Yuuri kisses him, presses hot lips against his mouth until their tongues meet. Yuuri follows his jawline, the curve of his neck and continues down his chest. Victor is still confused when Yuuri disappears under the blanket, even if his body has already guessed Yuuri’s intentions.

“Yuuri…” he whispers in the dark, and his next breath gets stuck in his throat when Yuuri pulls down his underwear. Yuuri’s lips wet the side of his cock and his tongue soon swirls around the head. Yuuri’s hands caress Victor’s abs, his fingers dig into his hips, and squeeze his thighs firmly as he takes him into his mouth. Victor bites his lip but cannot resist long. Yuuri’s lips stretch around the base as he pushes him deeper in his throat and then pulls back to suck on the tip. He circle’s Victor’s cock with his hand while he licks a drop of precum and immediately takes him in his mouth again. Victor cannot help a jerk of the hips and Yuuri does not protest, letting him run his fingers through his hair and hold his head down until he spills inside him in a spasm. 

Victor takes a long minute to catch his breath. “I didn’t think you would… be in the mood for that,” he eventually mutters when his heartbeat starts to slow down.

“I’m too sore and tired for anything else but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. I mean,” Yuuri says as he pokes his squishy belly. “I understand if you don’t find me very attractive right now but you, you’re still the same.”

Victor bends to kiss Yuuri’s stomach right where he just touched it and Yuuri giggles. Victor keeps pecking around his belly button and lets his hands run down his hips to grab his butt.

“Your thighs feel so good I don’t know if I can wait.”

“If it’s just my thighs it can be arranged…”

“I want everything,” Victor whispers as he lets his fingers run under Yuuri’s boxer between his legs.

“Anything you want as long as I don’t have to move and you don’t make me pregnant again,” Yuuri says in a fake sigh.

“I’m fine with that.”

 

To their great satisfaction Yukie sleeps through the night for the first time, and in the morning Yuuri makes a mental note to ask Yuri what he did to make her sleep so well.

 

The gynecologist asks to see Yuuri to talk about contraception, and he strangely dreads the appointment. She spreads a pile of leaflets on her desk and lengthily explains the advantages of a hysterectomy, how hormonal contraception would be complicated to adapt for him, and how he could finally become a normal man with just a simple operation. Yuuri nods and takes the documents without a word. Victor does not say anything either, until they are back home and Yuuri is still looking into the void thoughtfully as he changes a diaper. 

“You don’t want the operation, do you?” Victor asks when Yuuri has put Yukie in her seat in the living room.

Yuuri pinches his lips and hides his face in Victor’s chest. 

“It’s ok,” Victor says, “you’ve already spent enough time in the hospital.”

Yuuri rubs his nose against Victor’s shirt as he shakes his head. “It’s not that…” 

“Tell me?”

“It’s stupid because I know I was fine not knowing about it before but… Now I feel like it’s a part of me, I don’t care that it’s not normal or whatever. I think I like being different, I mean… It gave us a daughter, and I’m… kinda proud?”

Victor smiles and hugs Yuuri tighter. “I’m so proud of you I struggle every day not to tell the whole world that you carried our baby. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

The gynecologist is surprised but finally suggests Yuuri to get a non-hormonal IUD, which he finds very convenient. 

 

Yuuri is convinced that Victor keeps buying baby toys when he is not looking, and their apartment now looks like a daycare center. There is not a corner without a playmat or a fluffy toy. Yuuri knows that his baby is not even old enough to realize she has toys, but it does not stop Victor from buying them. Everything that is cute, soft, fluffy, or funny, somehow ends up in her crib, the same day if Victor has time to spend online before noon.

 

About six weeks after the delivery Yuuri has a routine appointment at the hospital to make sure that his body is recovering well. He is still several pounds over his previous weight and his love handles do not seem to want to go away, but the swell of his stomach has nicely diminished over the past few weeks. Anna feels his abdomen conscientiously, examines his C-section scar, and does a last ultrasound check before saying that everything is going well. She tells him that he can start light training again, and Victor quivers with impatience in his chair. She sighs. “Yes, you can resume sexual intercourses.” 

Victor’s hand jumps to Yuuri’s thigh and Anna tenses. “Not here, Victor.”

“It’s been like four months!” Victor whines.

Once at home Yuuri makes sure that Yukie is clean, fed, and warmly swaddled in her crib, and he barely has time to close the door to her bedroom before Victor pushes him against the wall and kisses him with hungry lips. He lifts him up and carries him to their bed bridal style. Yuuri giggles and lets Victor undress him, amused by his eagerness. Victor unbuttons Yuuri’s pants and Yuuri wiggles out of them quickly. His scar is healing well but it is still bright between his hips. Victor looks at it for a moment and Yuuri pulls on his sweater to hide both his round stomach and his scar.

Victor gently takes his hand, moves it away, and rolls his sweater up to take it off. “You know I like when you're chubby.”

“What if I stay fat forever?” 

“I'll forever be distracted by your butt.”

Victor kisses Yuuri's stomach again and slowly moves down to his hips. He keeps pecking and licking down his inner thigh and Yuuri knows him too well. 

“Don't tease me.”

Victor has a guilty pout and crawls up over Yuuri to kiss his lips and press their erections together. 

“Please…” Yuuri insists.

“Are you sure? Don’t want to hurt you.”

“I need you, I’ve missed you.”

They pretend to take their time for about fifteen seconds, before they give up and hurry like teenagers, messily kissing each other while their hands do the most rudimentary foreplay. Victor cannot repress a grunt when he pushes inside Yuuri and feels squeezed more than ever before. He even worries that Yuuri might be in pain but Yuuri is red with lust and already pushing back to get more. Victor slowly pulls out and pushes back in, and is ashamed of how much he has to focus not to spill immediately. 

“Yuuri stop I-”

But Yuuri wiggles and speeds up to reach his own climax.

Victor growls between clenched teeth. “Yuuri!”

“Inside me!”

Yuuri gasps when Victor grabs his thighs and pushes even deeper with a last strong thrust.

They let themselves fall on the bed and try to catch their breath.

“You were right,” Victor mutter after a minute.

“Hm?”

“You’re still as good as new.”

Yuuri has a side smile. He knew it of course, but it still feels good to hear.

“You think so?”

“Actually no. I think you’re even better than I remembered. We should do it again to be sure.”

 

The Russian team keeps asking how Yuuri and Yukie are doing, and Yuuri has to admit that he misses the ice. He dresses Yukie for her first appearance at the rink. He still wonders how they have so many baby clothes, he does not remember buying half of them, and some little dresses look more expensive than his skates. He knows that Victor has been doing some shopping without him, but sometimes finds leopard prints in the closet and he is still not sure what to think about that. 

The wind of February is freezing and so every time they go out Yukie wears several layers over her onesie and gets wrapped in a blanket.  

Victor pushes the stroller through the double doors of the rink and Yuri and Mila on the ice stop to come and see them with the rest of the team. Victor sees Yuuri sit on the bench to put on his skates, and asks Yuri if he can watch Yukie during his break. Yuri shrugs because Yakov is too busy looking at the baby too to keep coaching him anyway. 

“How do you feel?” Victor asks as he kneels in front of Yuuri to tie his second skate.

Yuuri’s eyes shine. “Excited.”

His heart beats so fast that he does not wait for Victor to put on his own skates before stepping on the ice. He cannot repress the widest grin when he glides and the cold air tousles his hair. He picks up speed and does a few little steps. His muscles remember well and Victor has to catch up with him to remind him to take it easy. 

“It’s ok, I’m fine!”

“No jumps!”

Yuuri does a single toe loop. “Oops!”

Victor takes him by the waist and hugs him to stop him from being imprudent. Everybody else is looking at Yukie and Yuuri and Victor have a moment on the ice just for themselves. For a minute it feels like nothing has changed and it is only the ice and the two of them, like at the beginning.

Yuuri dances and turns, feels the ice under his blades and the cold on his cheeks. Victor watches him warily at first, but then Yuuri does what he does the best. In a few steps, a twizzle, and a spin, Victor is reminded of what brought him to marry Yuuri in the first place.

“Victor!” Yuri shouts. “Your baby stinks!”

Victor has a disappointed pout and Yuuri skates a circle around him. “You can change her on the table in the locker room. Try to be quick please, I don't want her to get cold.”

“Yeah… I never thought I’d do that.”

Yuuri smiles and keeps dancing while Victor skates to the barrier and reaches for his guards. Yuuri tries his luck with a triple jump and the pain in his butt when he falls reminds him not to be too cocky after taking 6 months off.  

A few minutes later Victor steps out of the locker room with Yukie in his arms. With her snowsuit she looks like a fluffy starfish. Victor takes off the guards of his skates again, without putting Yukie down.

“Victor, no!” Yuuri gasps when Victor steps on the ice with his baby. “I mean I’d rather you didn’t-”

“I just want to see if she likes it! And for your information, I’ve skated before, I’m rather good at it.”

Yuuri rolls his eyes. “Like you’ve never stumbled on your toe picks… Please, just give her back to Yuri if you want to keep skating.”

“I can’t believe you trust Yuri more than me.”

“Yuri has taken off his skates, I’m sure he won’t try to do a quadruple axel with my baby in his ar-”

A loud voice rises from behind the barrier. “VICTOR you irresponsible BRAT!” Yakov roars. “I’ve seen you trip on your own skates more times than anyone else in this rink! If I see you on the ice with that baby again I’m giving every single one of your medals back to the ISU!”

 

Yuuri and Victor are still determined to register Yukie as their biological child, and build a case file that contains everything about their relationship, Yuuri’s extended medical record, and far more pictures of their baby than necessary. They spend hours waiting in line and explaining their problem to state employees who look very confused and have a hard time addressing them to the appropriate court. Yuuri stops counting the number of times he has to repeat that he is not a woman. The couple spends thousands of rubles to have official translations of the family documents Yuuri’s mother sends them, and Victor refuses to tell Yuuri how much his lawyer is making to change “Ms.” To “Mr.” on a piece of paper. 

“I feel like we’re wasting our time,” Yuuri mutters after sorting an nth pile of documents and throwing half of it in the bin. “I’m sorry we have to do all of this… I’m trying to accept the idea of just adopting her but… it makes me really… sad.”

Victor shakes his head and holds Yuuri tight. “Mark said this kind of procedure could take years, but it doesn’t mean that they won’t accept our request. We just need to hold on.”

 

As March approaches, Yuuri realizes that he should start training seriously if he wants to be at his previous level for the next season. For long minutes he contemplates the idea of starting again and following his old training schedule. He sees himself asking Victor to coach him and he pictures the two of them looking for a nanny to watch Yukie while they are at the rink. He imagines traveling across the world and sometimes having to leave his baby at home. He swallows and looks down at Yukie as he just finishes changing her diaper. She's sucking on her toe and looking at him with big bright eyes. She babbles and offers her best toothless grin. 

Yuuri spends the rest of the day at home and does not ask Victor to coach him.

A week later Victor shows him a video of his ideas for Yuri’s next short program. When the screen goes black, Yuuri nods in appreciation and Victor hesitates. 

“We’ve not talked about it,” he says slowly, “I didn’t want to rush you so I’ve not started working on yours, but if you want to we can start next week and-"

Yuuri shakes his head and smiles. Victor looks at him with a worried frown. "Are you sure?" 

"Yeah, I need to tell my coach that I'm retiring for personal reasons. Do you need a certified letter or is this enough?"

"You have the cutest personal reason."

“I know. I want to spend time with her, I don’t feel like rushing in a new season.”

“Yuuri... You know that if you want to compete again we can make it work. We can find someone to look after her when we're busy, and we can arrange our schedule. I mean, do things people do when they go back to work after having a baby.”

“I don't want to go back to work,” Yuuri pouts. “I won’t stop skating but… I think I’m done with competitions.”

“You could still win several medals…”

“I’ve already won a lot of things these past few years and I mean, I’m 27, it’s not really like I’m retiring early.”

“I just don't want you to regret later.”

Yuuri suddenly realizes that there might be more to it for Victor than wanting his husband to win another season. If Yuuri retires, it is another step away from the rink for both of them. Despite the hours that he spends training Yuri, Victor is still not his official coach, and so he has no actual reason to show up at the rink every day. 

"Did you regret retiring to coach me?" Yuuri asks softly.

Victor takes a second to think. “At the beginning of the season… It felt weird. During your first competitions everybody was going to the lockers and putting on their skates and I had nothing to do but stand by the barrier. I kept wondering if I’d have won this season if I had been competing.”

“You never told me-”

“But then I remembered why I had stopped. I wouldn’t have had the motivation for a whole other season. I needed a new inspiration, I wanted to do something different. I stopped asking myself if I could’ve won and started wishing you would win. Now I can’t believe I even doubted my choice.”

“Do you think I’ll regret if I retire for Yukie?”

Victor shakes his head and smiles. “I think you’ll regret if you don’t.”

Yuuri nods. “Then it’s decided.”

 

That night Yuuri wakes up to take care of Yukie, and when he picks her up from her crib, he is sure of two things. He has made all the right decisions, and the coming years will certainly be more exciting than any skating season.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I didn't make too many mistakes or incoherences in this chapter, it gave me a bit of a hard time with the chronology... I still hope that it's good enough and you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! <3
> 
>  
> 
> 21/12 : The epilogue should be up before 2019, sorry for the wait, I had long days at work because of the end of the year, but I'm finally on holiday so I should have time to finish editing. See you soon! <3
> 
> -TheSprout


	6. And all the seasons of her life

Yukie grows up and looks every day a bit more like Victor. Her personality, however, is everything like Yuuri’s, nobody can deny it, even before she starts to talk. Her big brown eyes have Victor wrapped around her finger and Yuuri’s efforts not to spoil her too much are most often completely vain.

 

Their administrative battle for Yuuri to be recognized as Yukie’s biological father gets more complicated every week, and Yuuri needs all the support Victor can offer him not to give up. He stays at home with his baby and goes through ridiculous piles of paperwork that Victor’s lawyer asks him to fill in, most documents having nothing to do with his situation or requiring information he does not have.

“They say the person who carried the baby will always be referred to as “the mother”, but all my official documents are for a man, nothing matches…” he whines as he leaves through a thick folder.

“It’s ok,” Victor says as he hugs him.

Yuuri sniffles. “Maybe I should just change my gender and we’d be done.”

“Did you just decide to make me straight?” Victor gasps.

Yuuri blows his nose and has a weak smile, wet with tears. “It’d be easier.”

“You’ve carried our baby, you’ve given birth, you’re breastfeeding, and you’ll let a couple of stubborn government workers put you down?”

“I’m just tired.”

 

One evening Victor comes home late and finds Yuuri in tears over an envelope. He frowns when he recognizes the logo of the ISU.

Victor’s eyes go over the paper very quickly, and then a second time, more slowly. It is an official letter explaining that the ISU has been notified of Yuuri’s current administrative procedures, and that the medical uncertainty over Yuuri’s gender could make the medals he has won in the men’s events invalid. The last paragraph is a reminder that female skaters are forbidden to participate in men's events, and that the production of fake documents such as counterfeit birth certificates and medical records is liable to an exorbitant fine and a lifetime ban from the ISU.

“In the papers we gave to Mark I stated that I identify as a man and live my life as such,” Yuuri says, “and as an example, I said that I took part to several competitions in the men’s category, and I joined the certificates I got from the ISU. Someone from the administration must have contacted the ISU to ask questions.”

Victor clenches his teeth. He folds the letter and puts it away from Yuuri.

“I'll call the ISU to see what's going on, don't worry about it, ok? Just focus on the other documents, I’m sure they just misunderstood.”

Yuuri's hot tears keep flowing. “But what if it becomes public and everybody in Japan knows that I've lost my medals?”

Victor hugs him tightly. “You have not lost anything, they just overreacted. I promise they won’t take your medals.”

“How can you be sure?” Yuuri sobs. “My family will be so ashamed! Oh Victor I don’t know why I started all of this… What if they want me to give the prize money back? I can’t! I really ca-”

“Calm down please… They’ll never ask anything like that.”

“I’ll be so much in debt if-”

“Yuuri,” Victor cuts, this time firmly enough that Yuuri stops mumbling and looks up. “Money is not a problem, you know it. Do you really think I'd let you, my husband, the father of my baby, worry about that? They just freaked out and reacted without knowing what exactly was going on. You know them, as soon as there is the slightest suspicion of fraud they send this kind of letter to protect themselves in case it’s proven. Chris got one once because he talked with one of the judges of the European Championship and they thought he was flirting to have a better score.”

“Because he talked to them?”

“Ok he touched a butt, but he didn’t know it was a judge, and you know how he is.”

Yuuri sniffles and wipes his tears. “You’ll call them?”

“First thing tomorrow.”

Victor sends a couple of texts to the right people and manages to reach someone in charge at the ISU without using the regular contact form. Follows a heated phone call where Victor insists to know how they have had access to Yuuri’s medical records and what are the proofs that Yuuri might not be a man. It ends with threats of suing them for invasion of privacy and moral damages.

“They agreed not to suspend your medals and wait until our little administrative thing is over,” Victor says with a large smile.

Yuuri cannot repress a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry that you had to do that, I should have called myself.”

“No it’s fine, they said they were glad to have me on the phone because they didn’t hear a lot from me since I retired.”

“They said that?”

“Yeah, but it was before I explained why I was calling.”

 

“Why do they keep telling me that I’m a woman because I have a uterus?” Yuuri whines as they exit an nth audience where the officials insisted to call him “Mrs. Katsuki”.

“They don’t want to understand,” Victor whispers softly.

“I swear if they ask one more time I’m showing them my dick, maybe they think that’s what makes me a man.”

“Please don’t,” Victor chuckles. “I’ll have to show mine so we both go to jail together.”

Yuuri grunts bitterly. “Maybe if you showed yours they would understand…”

 

It's early in June and Victor has been looking stressed for a few days. Yuuri is starting to worry when Victor explains the reason for his agitation.

“My- My parents… will be visiting next week,” he says as he painfully twists his fingers together and avoids Yuuri’s gaze. “Sunday. For lunch.”

Yuuri blinks. “Here?”

“Yes. I mean, if it's ok with you.”

“Is it ok with you?”

Victor has an uncomfortable shrug. “My mother wants to see Yukie. She insisted a lot. I didn't feel like going to their place.”

Yuuri nods slowly. “Alright. That’s good. I mean, is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hey…” Yuuri purrs as he hugs Victor. “If anything goes wrong I’ll kick them out, ok?”

“You would kick out your in-laws?”

“If they are mean to my husband? They’ll leave the building through the garbage chute.”

 

On the next Sunday morning, Victor paces nervously in the living room and keeps twitching and sighing.

“Calm down,” Yuuri mutters as he gently brushes Victor's forearm. “You’re upsetting Yukie walking around like that. It’ll go fine.”

“It’s just been… a while.”

“It’s ok, I’m here this time.”

The bell rings and Victor straightens. “We can still pretend we’re absent,” he mutters, and Yuuri has a soft smile. “You can do it, and if you can’t I’ll ask them to leave.”

Yuuri picks up Yukie while Victor goes to open the door, paling as if he was walking to the scaffold.

Dmitri and Alena Nikiforov stand awkwardly in the doorway. They are just like Yuuri remembers them from the hospital. The resemblance between Victor and his mother is striking. For a second they all look at each other without a word, even Yukie does not make a sound. Dmitri has a short nod.

“Victor.”

“Dmitri.”

Victor steps aside to let them in. He looks down at his mother and his face softens slightly. “Mom.”

It looks like Alena refrains from taking him into her arms. “Oh Victor… How have you been?”

“Welcome,” Yuuri says politely, even though the eyes are already all for Yukie.

“Isn’t she lovely!” Alena gasps. “She’s already so big!”

“Yukie, say hi?” Yuuri coos as he takes her hand to show her how to wave.

They exchange niceties. They visit the apartment and Yuuri pretends he does not hear the skeptical comments Dmitri makes as he wonders out loud how Victor can afford the place and how he must be caught in a ridiculous debt that he will never be able to pay back. Victor cuts it short by saying that he and Yuuri own the place and never had to take a loan. Makkachin growls at Victor’s parents and Victor barely holds his dog back after Dmitri asks how this mutt is not dead yet. Yuuri sees Alena elbow her husband in the ribs, and his frown deepens but he keeps quiet.

Lunch is rather quiet. Yuuri and Alena exchange a few words about Yukie, how she’s getting cranky because she’s starting to teeth, and how she sleeps very well at night even though she also naps a lot during the day. Victor answers a couple of questions of no interest about the district they live in and the traffic in town.

Yuuri is feeding Yukie a spoon of mashed potatoes when Dmitri clears his throat.

“So… erm, Yuuri. Does your family also come from China?”

Victor winces and Yuuri shifts on his chair. “Actually I’m Japanese, and my family lives in Japan, besides Victor and Yukie of course.”

“Hm. Right. Victor has always been a bit… exotic in his choices.”

Yuuri forces a chuckle not to lose face. “For my family, it’s Victor who’s a foreigner.”

“He has always liked to stand out.”

Just when Yuuri thinks that he will not be able to breathe if the air thickens any more, Yukie babbles and happily throws a handful of mashed potatoes on Alena's shoulder.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry!” Yuuri says as he hurries to help his mother in law clean up.

“Yukiiiie,” Victor scolds as he wipes her little hands clean. “Don't play with food, food goes in your mouth not anywhere else...” Yukie whines at his severe ton and Victor frowns even more. “I don't care if you're not happy, playing with food is bad.”

Dmitri twitches with annoyance. “Why do you keep talking to her in English? Can't she understand Russian?”

Victor sighs. “First of all, she’s 6 months old so I’m not sure she understands a word of what I’m saying. I speak English with Yuuri so it's easier if we all speak English, but she’ll surely learn Russian and Japanese as well. It can only be good for her to speak several languages.”

“But she will go to school in Russia, right?”

Victor shrugs. “If we feel like moving to Japan and living there we will.”

“You don’t think about it Victor…”

“Why not? Yukie is just as Japanese as she’s Russian, there’s no reason we’d live in my country and not in Yuuri’s.”

Yuuri flushes at the declaration. He knows that Victor is probably just trying to provoke his father, but hearing him say that he is ready to move to Japan makes Yuuri feel warm and fuzzy inside.

On the other side of the table, Dmitri is boiling. “Nonsense! What would you even do in Japan? You’ve never even left St Petersburg!”

“I’m a coach now, I’ll find students wherever I go. I was in Japan last year, Yuuri’s family was very nice to me.”

“You’re coaching? You’re not competing anymore?”

“I stopped three years ago.”

“You could have told us.”

“It was on the national news.”

“Do you plan on finding a real job anytime soon?”

“I have a real job.”

“How are you going to support your family?”

“We’re doing pretty well so far.”

Dmitri turns to Yuuri again. “Does your family accept all of this fantasy?”

Yuuri shrugs and nods. “They are very supportive. They love to see Victor when we visit. He has been part of the family from the very first day to be honest.”

“They’re fine with… you not finding a wife?”

“Oh erm, yes. They knew I was in love Victor far before meeting him actually, so they were just very happy for me when we got married,” Yuuri says with an embarrassed blush, and Victor takes his hand gently.

Yuuri can almost hear Dmitri’s teeth break under the tension of his jaw, so he smiles politely, gets up, and offers a second serving of dessert.

 

After lunch Yuuri takes Yukie to her bedroom to change her diaper, and Victor’s mother follows him silently.

“How did the pregnancy go?” she asks, half to lighten the mood but with what looks like actual concern.

“It went ok, I didn’t really know what to expect but Victor helped me a lot. I had preterm labor in November but it was just a scare.”

Alena seems genuinely worried. “Oh… I think she was early as well? Victor had said she would be born in January.”

“Yes, but just by a couple of weeks. She was a bit small but she’s fine, thankfully.”

“That’s good. Really good.”

Yuuri finishes dressing Yukie after her diaper change, and picks her up from the table. “Do you want to hold her?” he asks Alena.

Her eyes widen as if she had not been expecting such an offer, and she nods eagerly. She takes Yukie, careful as if she was the most precious thing she had ever held, hugs her, and gently rocks her. Her sharp traits melt into a fond smile and Yuuri can’t help but remember that one time Lilia got moved by Yuri’s skating and her face became something else than a severe frown.

“She has your eyes,” Alena says as she looks at Yuuri and then back at Yukie in a thoughtful moment. “Victor also had white hair when he was born. It got silver when he turned six or seven.”

There is a heavy silence. Yuuri does not dare to ask but it looks like she reads his mind.

“I guess he didn’t tell you good things about us, did he?” she says with an embarrassed wince.

“He never talked about you to be honest. I actually thought you were...”

Yuuri stops as he realizes a bit too late how hurtful his sentence is.

She nods quietly. “I understand.”

For a moment Yuuri thinks he will not hear any more of it. Alena delicately brushes Yukie’s hair back into place and Yukie yawns.

“We had.. a fight,” Alena says softly without looking away from Yukie. “Dmitri kicked Victor out. Or Victor ran away. A bit of both, it was really complicated. I thought it was a teenager rebellion but he never came back.”

She pauses and Yuuri doesn’t dare to move.

“Dmitri said horrible things,” Alena resumes gravely, all traces of a smile on her face gone. “Things no parents should ever tell their children. I hoped Victor could forgive us but he had already found a new family with his coach and his wife. He only came back to pick up his things.”

Her voice is slightly bitter but it’s the sadness that echoes in Yuuri’s ears. Alena takes in a deep breath and stands a little straighter.

“At the beginning I agreed that Victor had gone too far. We had raised him and given him everything, and he was so ungrateful... He spent all his time at the rink instead of studying, he only talked about dance and music, art, sport, as if they were serious things. He… he clearly wasn’t interested in women even at an early age. He didn't even try I should say, and he wasn’t hiding it at all. You cannot imagine how ashamed we were when people pointed it out,” she says with a slight shiver at the memory. “When we had a son Dmitri immediately thought he would follow his steps, but Victor was… Victor,” she sighs. “He was just not making any efforts to be normal.”

Yuuri remains silent. He would push her out the door right away but there is something strange in the way her eyes shine with regret and sincerity. He can tell that she only wanted the best for her son but she genuinely thought that he would have been happier if he had been “normal”. It is a deep ignorance that hurts maybe even more than actual resentment. It is incomprehension and narrow-mindedness beyond what Yuuri has ever faced. He tries to imagine what he would have done if his own family had exhorted him to be someone he was not, and understands why Victor sought refuge with Yakov as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

“Victor is normal,” Yuuri says coldly.

“I know. After a while I… I…” She pauses and Yuuri almost believes she is going to cry. She looks at him in the eyes and her blue irises glimmer. “Victor is my only child, you know. I realized that... I don’t understand everything about the way of life he has chosen, but I love him no matter what. You know what I mean,” she says as she hands Yukie back to Yuuri.

Yuuri cradles his baby against his chest tighter than usual.

“When we got his message I wanted to answer immediately, but Dima deleted it and never let me reply. It took months to convince him to visit you at the hospital. I'm sorry that we came without being invited but it was the only occasion I had to see my son and my granddaughter. I had not seen Victor in years, only sometimes on TV when he was competing.”

Yuuri nods silently, too upset to properly accept the apology. “What are you going to do now?” he asks, a bit more dryly than he had intended.

“We won’t disturb you. I just wanted to see Victor and Yukie, and let you know that if you need anything, we can help.”

“Even if Victor is not normal?” Yuuri insists. “I’m not a woman you know. I have this weird condition but I’m still a man, and Victor and I are still gay.”

Alena visibly represses a shudder at the last word, but nods with determination. “I know. I won’t ask Victor to change anymore. I’m not perfect, but I’ll try. I… I miss him a lot.”

Yuuri pinches his lips and looks at Alena in the eyes. “I’m willing to try and make this work, but if you say or do anything that hurts Victor or Yukie, you won’t be welcome here anymore.”

“Of course.”

“Same goes for your husband.”

Alena winces. “I try to talk to him but he’s still so angry… But he will behave,” she adds quickly as Yuuri starts to frown.

 

Victor and his father soon reach the end of the short list of the things they can tell each other without starting an actual fight, and the Nikiforovs get ready to live. Just before walking out Alena brushes Victor’s arm.

“You look happy,” she says softly.

Victor smiles. “I am.”

“I’m glad.”

After a moment of hesitation, Victor nods. “See you next time Mom,” he says, and Alena glows with happiness.

 

“They’re charming,” Yuuri deadpans after the door closes behind them.

“What if I told you they were actually doing their best today?”

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m ok. It could have been worse. Plus… I think my mother was happy to see Yukie.”

Yuuri chuckles and winces. “She’s still scared of gay people, but she was happy to see you too.”

Victor shrugs but cannot hide a side smile. “I knew I couldn’t cure them in one day anyway, even with the best husband and the cutest baby.”

  


In July Yukie eats solid food with her four baby teeth and Yuuri stops breastfeeding. He whines that he will never lose the five pounds that are still on his thighs.

Yuri blends a piroshki and a pork cutlet to see which one of her fathers Yukie prefers. It soon appears that she will eat whatever is presented to her, whether it is actual food or Yuri’s fingers. He tries to get revenge and see if Yukie will eat cat food, but Victor pinches his ear and kicks him out of the apartment before he can open the can.

Despite Yuri’s best efforts for her first word to be “fuck”, Yukie still ends up saying “Papa” before anything else. She soon decides to call Yuri “Kitty,” and Victor and Yuuri encourage it so she does not get confused with Yuuri and Yuri having the same name.

They fly to Japan for Yukie’s first summer, and Yuuri’s mother and sister can’t get tired of playing with her while Yuuri and Victor take a dip in the hot springs. They also take advantage of the fact that Yuuri’s family can watch Yukie to go out just the two of them and have a bit of time for themselves.

Minako and the Nishigoris visit and Yuko tries to give Yuuri all the baby clothes she owns, until Yuuri admits that he already has enough onesies to change her three times a day without doing the laundry, and he would not know what to do with clothes to dress three more babies. Minako pinches Yuuri’s love handles and argues that having been pregnant is not an excuse to let himself go.

Yukie crawls around on the tatamis and Yuuri and Victor sometimes have a hard time keeping an eye on her when she decides to follow Makkachin under a table or in the kitchen. Mari scolds them harshly when she finds Yukie playing with the water in the dog's bowl while they cuddle in front of the TV.

 

At the end of September, Yuuri and Victor are called in for an audience at the courthouse. They come with all of their documents and the firm intention not to leave before they get what they want.

The judge looks old and tired and Yuuri sees it as a bad sign. A lot of people already frown when they see that he and Victor are married, so when they try to explain that they have a baby some people almost accuse them of witchcraft.

Yukie babbles in her seat as if she tried to draw attention on herself and Yuuri takes her in his arm to try and calm her before she throws a fit. He would have left her at home with Yuri but Mark insisted that it would be in their favor to bring their adorable baby. Yuuri cannot help but feel like a circus attraction, exposing himself and his baby like freaks of nature and letting people judge whether they have the right to be recognized as human beings. Victor sees the anxiety in Yuuri’s eyes and hugs him gently, before taking Yukie from his arms and rocking her so she falls asleep.

The audience begins and Yuuri and Victor exchange a glance. The judge clears his throat.

“The court is now in session. The first case concerns a birth registration issue… ” he starts slowly as he pulls the heavy binder of Yuuri’s case file in front of him. “These documents seem to indicate that- Where is he? Ah, you Mr. Katsuki, lived your whole life as a man but somehow found out that you were pregnant at the beginning of last spring. Is this correct?”

“It is.”

“You were able to get pregnant because of a genetic particularity…” he says as he fumbles in the papers, “because of… pseudohermaphroditism, it this right?”

“Yes, it is.”

The judge hums. He turns a few pages in the folder and Yuuri can see that he is looking at pictures of him when he was at the end of his pregnancy and then when he was at the hospital. The judge frowns slightly as he looks up at Yuuri. “Have you ever identified as a woman or had the desire to become a woman?”

“No, never.”

“Your family and relatives have always known you as a man?”

“Yes. I was designated male at birth.”

“It is stated in the records that Mr. Nikiforov is the other biological father of the baby. Is this correct?”

“It is.”

The judge turns to Victor. “And you and Mr. Katsuki have been married for…”

“Three years next month.”

“Did you know at the time you got engaged that Mr. Katsuki had female… Attributes?”

“No, I didn't.”

“So you didn't marry Mr. Katsuki because he was able to conceive?”

Victor can't repress a short chuckle and Yuuri's cheeks redden. “No I didn't marry Yuuri for his uterus, I have a lot of others reasons.”

The questions follow each other and Yuuri feels like he keeps repeating himself over and over again. To his relief, the judge actually seems to have read the medical record and understand what is going on. He does not call Yuuri “Mrs. Katsuki” or ask Victor if he paid a surrogate.

The silence comes back and the judge nods slowly before he looks up at Yuuri. “What is your request?”

Yuuri speaks loud and clear. “I want to be recognized as Yukie's biological father, just like Victor. I want Yukie to be registered with both her biological parents on her birth certificate.”

“And?”

Yuuri frowns in confusion. “That's all.”

The judge raises his eyebrows. “That's all?”

“Yes.”

The judge turns to a woman sitting in a corner and taking quick notes on her laptop. “Ina, how did this case end up on my desk?”

She shifts uneasily on her chair. “The local city hall didn't know what to do so they transferred the case to the regional department, which concluded that they did not have the authority to take a decision and forwarded it to the national council.”

“How old is this baby?” the judge asks as he nods toward Yukie in Victor’s arms.

“Nine months and twenty-three days,” Yuuri answers.

“It took over nine months for this to be decided?”

“Actually we started the procedure about two months before the birth,” Mark says pointedly.

The woman named Ina speaks again. “The regional office mistakenly treated it as a sex change case at first, erm, they thought Mr. Katsuki was transgender… And then there is also the fact that they lost the documents for a few weeks, and, well, the person in charge of the case was on holiday for a month in June so…”

The judge pauses, has an almost imperceptible sigh, and closes the binder of Yuuri's files. “Granted. Next!”

Three weeks later Yuuri holds Yukie’s new birth certificate, with the mention of both of her fathers, “Mr. Victor Katsuki-Nikiforov” and “Mr. Yuuri Katsuki-Nikiforov”. They ask Yuri to babysit and go out to drink until they cannot remember what they are celebrating.

 

For Victor’s next birthday Yukie can toddle across the living room. He watches her fall on her butt and get up a thousand times and concludes that she is just like Yuuri. Yuuri cannot help but think that the year went by far too fast. Just yesterday she was in his belly and now she stumbles happily behind Makkachin. Victor is amazed by the patience his dog has when Yukie pulls on her tail and tries to climb on her back.

Sometimes Yuuri drops Yukie off at Yuri’s apartment so he babysits her for the night while Yuuri and Victor are out. Otabek keeps an impassive face when his living room is turned upside down by Yukie running after the cats and Yuri running after Yukie. Yuri teaches Yukie Russian swearwords, and Yuuri hears Victor use them all one after the other when he yells at Yuri after finding out.

Yuuri, Victor, and Yukie visit Yakov once a month and he always has sweets and cakes for Yukie to nibble at while he shows Yuuri whole albums of pictures of Victor and comments questionable costume choices.

 

Yukie is a year and a half when a thought sprouts in Yuuri’s mind and he does not manage to forget it. It quickly grows into an actual obsession. He looks at his body in the mirror lengthily, tries to change his mind about it, but it soon becomes too important not to share with his husband.

“Victor?” he asks one night after they went to bed as Victor is reading next to him.

“Hm?”

Yuuri bites his lips and swallows uncomfortably. “Do you sometimes… Do you sometimes want to… do it again?”

“Do what again?” Victor asks without looking up from his book.

“I… I have a routine appointment with the gynecologist next month and was thinking… What if I asked her to remove my IUD?”

Victor keeps reading. “Why?”

Yuuri blushes. “So I could erm… try and… get pregnant again?”

This time Victor looks up. “Yuuri…” he whispers.

“I was just thinking, it’s nothing really... I’d understand if-“

“You want to be pregnant again? After everything you’ve been through?”

“I feel like it wouldn’t be the same,” Yuuri shrugs slightly. “I know what to expect, and our friends know, my family knows and… I just feel like I have too much love for one baby,” he blurts quickly, “imagine how cute it’d be if she had a brother or a sister.”

“Wow.” Victor’s eyes widen and his eyebrows almost reach his hairline. He puts his book away and runs his fingers through his bangs.

“You can take your time and maybe tell me later what you think about it?” Yuuri suggests.

“If you want another baby we can adopt you know? You don't have to do it again, I can have Mark do the paperwork and-”

Victor stops when Yuuri pinches his lips in a guilty and somewhat sad pout. He squints. “You want to be pregnant again, don't you?”

Yuuri’s cheeks burn and he nods just once. Victor shakes his head, and Yuuri winces in concern. “We don’t have to! I’m sorry, I know it’s a lot, I shouldn’t have asked…”

Victor shakes his head again but smiles. “Turn around,” he says as he pushes Yuuri back in the pillows, “we’re making another baby!”

“Not right now, my appointment is next month, we can’t-“

“Is this a challenge? Spread your legs.”

“Victor!” Yuuri laughs as he is rolled onto his stomach.

“We’re making triplets.”

 

Victor keeps coaching Yuri when Yakov officially retires. Soon the rumor spreads that Victor Nikiforov will take new students, and within a few days several skaters show up at the rink to meet him. Some are sent by Yakov, others are friends of Yuri who have heard about his training, a few just show up out of the blue and Victor has to look up their programs online to make up his mind about them. He spends a lot of time with each candidate, sometimes asks Yuuri to attend a discussion to have his opinion, a couple of times he asks the skater to put on their skates and show him their program. Chris asks Victor to coach him to make his boyfriend pregnant.

After a couple of weeks and a lot of talks with Yuuri to organize their life around Yukie’s schedule and Victor’s job, Victor calls three skaters to tell them that he is willing to coach them for the next season.

“I think these three will make a good team,” he tells Yuuri and Yuri over a cup of tea one afternoon. “They’re all good at different things, they’ll learn from each other.”

Yuri starts twitching nervously. “Three?” he asks abruptly. “Three new students? What about me? Nobody else will want to coach me I can't-”

“Three, plus you of course.”

“No one will put up with me and I can’t win with another program, and you know me and-”

“Yura. You're still my student. I'll coach you as long as you want to skate with me.”

“I know there are younger skaters and my jumps are not as good as last year but-”

“I retired at 27, I don't expect you to stop before you want to. You’re barely 20, I hope you can at least stay on the podium for another 5 years.”

Yuri blinks. “You’re not kicking me out?”

“No?”

Yuri bites his lip. “Thank you,” he mutters, before hiding behind his mug.

 

Yuuri and Yukie follow Victor around the world, and sometimes Yuuri’s heart tightens as he misses the thrill of the competition. Morooka gets in touch with him during a press conference while he waits for Victor, and thanks to his college degree and his contacts in the skating world, he gets to publish a few articles as a freelance sports journalist. He has a true talent to always get the latest gossips and info about figure skating, hockey, and other winter sports he has never even done. Turns out that Yuuri knows Victor, who knows Chris, who knows a guy who knows a guy, and somehow Yuuri is always in the right place at the right time. Being neither a skater nor a coach, he has time to chit-chat here and there between sessions, and athletes seem to like to see him around during competitions. They talk to him easily and share their feelings about the events, and Yuuri makes sure to write down their emotions as truly as possible, being himself familiar with the ups and downs of an athlete’s life.

 

Despite their undeniable prowesses in bed, Yuuri still doesn’t see or feel any sign of pregnancy after several months, and he knows that Victor is getting impatient.

One afternoon Yuuri takes a long nap and when he wakes up, Victor waves a pink stick under his nose. Yuuri shakes his head.

“I don’t think I’m pregnant…”

“Just try it, you’ve been feeling exhausted lately.”

Yuuri reluctantly goes to the bathroom, and drags his feet out a couple of minutes later.

“Sooo?”

“I'm not pregnant, I'm just fat and tired. I’m sorry.”

Victor pouts but comes to hug him. “Don’t be sorry, it’s ok, it’s also my fault.”

“The gynecologist says that it's complicated… We have no way to know when I can conceive. We're not even sure I'll ever be fertile again actually.”

“Hey,” Victor says as he brushes Yuuri’s cheek softly. “We did it for two years before you got pregnant the first time. It’s not surprising that it doesn’t work immediately the second time around.”

 

It is another year and uncountable attempts of procreation before Yuuri throws up in Yuri’s sports bag and Victor declares that it is the best day of his life. The pregnancy test shows two very neat pink lines and Yuuri cannot help but be surprised himself. Anna and Lena sigh when Yuuri shows up at the hospital, already six pounds over his usual weight, and very proud of himself. Yuri adopts a fifth cat under Otabek’s helpless eyes.

 

Victor buys a pair of white skates as soon has Yukie can fit in the smallest size. Yuuri receives the package at home while Victor is at the rink and patiently waits for him to come back home.

“Did you buy $400 blades for a two-year-old?”

Victor blushes sheepishly. “No…”

“Victor...”

“They were 360 with the loyalty discount. Plus she’s almost 3.”

“She can’t even walk up the stairs properly, why would you buy blades that are designed for triple jumps? Why do they even exist in this size? And her boots will be too small in three months, we should’ve rented a pair for now, maybe she’ll not even like it...”

“No member of this family will ever be caught in rental skates, that’s my veto!”

Yuuri winces and blinks in disbelief. “What veto?”

“My Olympic champion veto.”

“What- I’m literally carrying your second child! If someone gets a veto it’s ME!”

Victor scratches the back of his head uneasily. “I can’t return them, the blades are engraved with her name.”

“VICTOR!”

 

Yuuri has been ecstatic since his pregnancy was confirmed in the hospital. There’s not a minute where he does not talk about it, touch his belly, or suggest Victor a baby name. It goes on until his symptoms take over and he finds himself kneeling next to the toilet again and vomiting everything he has eaten over the past eight hours.

“I had forgotten about this,” he mutters as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and Victor hands him a wet cloth. “I’m not sure we should have done it again.”

“You literally begged me.”

“I didn't beg…”

Victor taps a long finger on his lips in a thoughtful moment. “It was something like ‘Oh Victor please, put it inside me, so deep, oh yes please, more’.”

“I have no recollection of this,” Yuuri denies, before hiding his face in the toilet bowl again.

 

Saying that Yukie is a natural on the ice would be an understatement, but neither Victor nor Yuuri really seem to be aware of it. They hold her hands and laugh blissfully when she tries to skate by herself. The little family comes to the rink several days a week, and every time, Yukie gasps when Victor jumps, claps when Yuuri spins, and she is always eager to get back up no matter how many times she falls.

“Again! Again!” she demands happily when Mila does a toe loop, “Ouch!” she shouts when Yuri flubs a quad flip.

At the end of practice Yuuri often needs the assistance of Yuri to drag Yukie and Victor off the ice.

“Yukie baby, we can’t spend our whole life on the ice, I’m sorry,” Victor coos when he scoops Yukie up from the ice and she starts fussing.

“But why?”

“Because… Because…” Victor begins before frowning with confusion. “Actually, I don’t know. Yuuri, why can’t we just spend all of our time here?”

Yuuri smiles but his eyes darken when he murmurs in Victor’s ear. “Let’s go home and I’ll show you things we can only do on a bed.”

Victor blushes. “Because skating is exhausting Yukie, it's time to go home and take a big nap.”

 

Yuuri's belly gets big and round again and he has hardly ever been happier. This time he feels much more relaxed and fully enjoys every moment, even when he his too swollen to fit into his pants. No labor scare comes to cast a shadow over the lasts months, and Victor discovers just exactly how much he likes pregnancy sex. Yuuri feels like a washed-up whale in his pajamas, but Victor cannot keep his hands to himself, and Yuuri almost thinks that he’s trying to induce labor early.

Hana is born during cherry blossom season. The C-section was planned early but Yuuri still goes into labor before the due date. Thankfully he only goes through a few light contractions before he is taken care of, and he cannot believe how nicely everything goes compared to the nightmare of the first time. Hana’s skin and eyes are pale like Victor’s, but her hair is pitch black. Yukie thinks her sister looks like a potato and Victor decides she needs to spend less time with Yuri. Otabek threatens Yuri to break up if he adopts yet another cat.

 

On Yukie’s first day of kindergarten, Yuuri bawls his eyes out and looks like he would rather drown in his own tears than let his daughter walk to the playground. It takes him a full week to be able to leave the school in the morning without shedding a tear, even though Yukie only attends morning classes and is always back at home before noon.

Victor and Yukie attract a lot of attention among the mothers of the other children. Yuuri cannot really blame them, when Yukie is the cutest little girl and Victor the hottest dad in the country. It does not ruin anything that Victor makes sure he and his daughter are wearing matching outfits on top of having matching hair. Yuuri, however, has to push away a few eager moms who seem to believe that Victor is a single dad because he sometimes comes to the school alone when Yuuri stays at home with Hana. They come up to Victor, fawning and purring, when he drops Yukie off for class and he is stupidly oblivious to their little game. Yuuri always takes a perverse pleasure in telling them that Victor is not single, in fact, Victor is his husband, and they live the most perfect and fulfilling family life together with their adorable daughters.

 

“Victor,” Yakov says seriously when he stops by the rink to visit. Victor is staying off the ice and gently rocking Hana's baby seat while he watches Yuri go through his program. “I talked with Anastasia, she’s keeping a spot for Yukie in the detection group.”

“What? Why?”

“Why? Are you blind?”

Victor shakes his head and frowns. “Yukie’s 3, she doesn’t need to train 15 hours a week.”

“Times have changed, kids don’t start at 7 or 8 anymore. The officials are already keeping an eye on her, I'm surprised they have not contacted you yet.”

“I don’t think she needs to attend classes that early, she has enough support and guidance at home.”

“You can’t coach your own daughter.”

“Are you saying that my coaching is worse than a collective class for 4-year-olds?”

“No. I’m saying that you already pushed it by coaching your husband, and I’m sure that Katsuki will agree with me that it’s not good for Yukie to have her father as a coach.”

“Why not? The whole Leroy family is trained by their parents, it’s common practice.”

“Do you want your daughter to become like Jean-Jacques Leroy?”

Victor pinches his lips in an upset pout.

“Victor…” Yakov resumes with a softer ton that Victor has hardly ever heard. “I know what I’m talking about. You can't be a coach and a parent.”

Victor sighs with resignation. “I’ll talk with Yuuri, but I don’t think she needs to start classes so early. Maybe in a year or two.”

“I can give you a couple of names if you’re looking for a private coach.”

On the ice, in a corner of the rink, Yukie is holding Yuuri’s hands and letting herself be pulled lazily. Yuuri speeds up a bit and Yukie laughs.

Everything is too quick for Victor. It feels like the day before she was learning to crawl and now Yakov is talking about letting someone else take care of her. Frankly, at that moment, there is no one Victor could trust enough to coach his daughter. No one skilled enough, no one caring enough. He wants to keep Yukie for himself for a few more years before he sends her off into competitions.

“I don’t know,” he mutters. “I’ll get back to you if I need to.”

 

That evening Victor relates his conversation with Yakov to Yuuri.

“I don’t really like it to be honest…” Yuuri says after Victor has expressed his concerns. “But I know that here in Russia the kids start early. I don’t want her to fall behind if she actually wants to compete later.”

Victor rolls his eyes. “She’s not falling behind... Just because she doesn’t do two years of swizzles with the other kids doesn’t mean she won’t be able to compete later if she wants too.”

“If you think so then yes,” Yuuri nods, “I agree that waiting a bit more is good. It’ll give us more time to see if she still enjoys it when she grows up or if it’s just Yakov wanting to see if the quad flip is hereditary.”

There is a pause and Victor reluctantly speaks again. “He said I shouldn’t try to be her coach if she does need one one day.”

Yuuri smiles softly. “You were great with me, but I do think it’s wise to try and find someone else for Yukie. She needs to be able to have family time without thinking about the ice and her coach. I was really glad that my parents had nothing to do with skating to be honest. I’m afraid that with both of us being skaters, she will already hear about it often enough. It doesn’t mean that we won’t support her. We’ll be there as parents, not as coaches.”

“I just… Alright,” Victor admits, “I’m having a hard time accepting to let her train with someone we don’t know and who probably doesn’t have as many medals as me or you.”

“Well, if we only look for coaches who have as many titles as you do it’s going to be tough…” Yuuri chuckles. “Or maybe… In a few years…”

Victor reads his mind. “No.”

“Hey, we don’t need to think about it right now anyway. She’s still all yours this year at least.”

 

Yukie’s love for skating grows stronger with each session at the rink, and Victor and Yuuri finally sign her up in the advanced group. On the first day she comes back asking why everybody, including the teacher, looked at her so strangely after roll call. Yuuri repeats about once a week that it’s great that she loves to skate but he will love her just as much if she ever wants to do something else.

While her sister takes every trait of her personality after Yuuri, Hana radiates a true Nikiforov sass as soon as she can talk, and Victor himself has a hard time having the last word over his toddler, to everyone else’s satisfaction.

They move out after Hana’s first birthday. In the same building but in a bigger apartment, so each girl can have her own bedroom.

Makkachin peacefully falls asleep one winter night and never wakes up again. They wait a year before taking the girls to choose a new poodle.

Yuri asks Otabek if he wants to get married and Otabek shrugs and nods.

Victor’s students never miss the podium and he earns his stripes as a coach after winning everything as a skater.

The Nikiforovs visit twice a year, once for each girl’s birthday, which also happens to make them come for Victor’s birthday. The reunion is never as warm and happy as it is when Yuuri’s parents visit, but the Nikiforovs make great efforts not to be disrespectful, for fear they will never see their granddaughters again if Victor and Yuuri decide so. Although his relationship with his mother seems to slowly build back, Victor remains firmly opposed to letting Yukie and Hana spend time with them without him or Yuuri being present. He has however expressed his relief that his daughters get to see both of their grandparents and that the attention and occasional presents do not only come from Yuuri’s side of the family.

 

One morning soon after Yukie’s eighth birthday, Victor and Yuuri get a call from her school teacher to report her absence in class, and they have no idea where she could be. Yuuri is torn between passing out and calling Interpol when Victor’s phone rings. It’s Yuri.

“Victor, I think I have something that belongs to you.”

Behind him, Yukie’s embarrassed voice echoes through the phone. “Yuriiiiiiii! You said you’d not tell them!”

“I lied.”

“She’s at your place?” Victor asks with concern.

“Yeah, she’s practicing double toe loops in my living room, between my couch and my coffee table…” Yuri says with a roll of the eyes. “I’m at the rink. Your daughter is trying to steal the slot I booked for practice.”

“We could just share the ice, you don’t need it all for yourself...” Yukie argues in the background. Yuri takes the phone off his ear but his voice is still clearly audible.

“Yes I do, you don’t become Olympic champion by doing babysitting on your practice time. I should’ve pushed you out with the Zamboni.”

“You’ve won enough, it’s my turn now!”

“You can talk to me when you land a clean triple, that’ll give me a few more years of peace.”

“Watch me!”

“I watch, I watch, and I only see doubles…”

Yukie’s cry of frustration resonates in the rink and Yuri’s ton changes as he talks into his phone again. “Victor, she landed a perfect double flip before she saw that I was here. I don’t understand why you and Katsudon are still holding her back, you really need to find her a coach. Plus she could have hurt herself skating alone- Yukie your free leg looks like a crab leg!” he briefly shouts across the rink. “Please come and pick her up, I can’t watch her today.”

Victor cannot repress a small smile. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ll be there in five.”

Yuuri cannot help but smile too, but he forces half a frown. “We still need to scold her for skipping school and disappearing without telling us, I almost had a heart attack.”

Victor pouts. “I hate that part…” he whines. “You know I’m really bad at this, she looks at me and she’s got your eyes and I get all weak.”

“Victor…”

But Victor has already put on his coat and picked up his bag and his skates, and he disappears behind the door before Yuuri can protest.

  
  
  
  


Victor looks at his reflection in the mirror with a worried frown. He brushes his bangs back, feels the thin strands of hair under his fingers, and flattens it over his temple.

“Dad, you’re getting bald, get over it. Come on, we’re gonna be late.”

“You’re so cruel.”

“Every time you lose a hair I love you more.”

“I’m feeling very conflicted.”

“Victor, we’re really going to be late.”

“They never start on time anyway.”

“Yes they do, they were only late because they waited for you to show up.”

“I was napping.”

“Dad!”

“Come over here,” Victor says with a tilt of the head.

“We’re late!”

“That ponytail isn’t going to survive your first jump.”

“Yes it is.”

“Listen to your father Yukie,” Yuuri says softly as he watches Victor hold a hair tie in his mouth and pull his daughter’s hair back. He cannot help a fond smile at the scene, but is quickly brought back to reality when his phone vibrates in his pocket. “Victor hurry up, Yuri’s already called me twice.” He turns and puts his hands on his hips. “Hana, why are you still not wearing your coat?”

The four of them arrive all panting at the rink. A young member of staff tries to tell them that they cannot follow the athletes to the lockers if they don’t have badges, and Victor has a small laugh and tousles the guy’s hair as he walks past him anyway.

“If you show up at the kiss and cry again I quit,” Yuri grumbles when Victor comes up to him after Yukie has left to the women’s locker room.

“Oh come on!”

“Parents aren’t supposed to sit on the bench with the skaters, you know it.”

“But I do the kissing and Yuuri does the crying, that’s what it’s made for!”

Yuri represses a sigh and looks down at Hana. While she only ever skates as a hobby and has not expressed the wish to become a professional athlete like her parents, she never misses an occasion to support her sister. “Otabek’s over there in the first row by the stairs,” Yuri says, ”you can go and sit with him.”

Yuuri looks at where Yuri is pointing in the bleachers behind the barrier. Otabek wears his usual impassive face, and it would look like not a year has passed since he met Victor and Yuuri, if it was not for the little boy sitting on his lap. He looks nothing like Yuri or Otabek, but his leopard print winter coat and his blue and gold wool hat leave very little doubt to who his parents are. Yuuri kisses Hana on the forehead. “Go, don’t get lost on the way, we’ll join you soon.”

Hana rolls her eyes. “How could I get lost? It’s right there…”

Victor bends to whisper in her ear. “If you make a detour to see the Leroy son, I’ll know it.”

“Uugh daaad!”

“Go!”

Yukie appears behind them, she gives her water bottle and her white and red jacket to Yuri as Victor kneels to tie her skates. When he looks up his expression is serious and focused.

“Watch your free leg and don’t double foot the salchow like last time, ok?”

“Victor!” Yuuri scolds next to him.

Victor stands back up, clears his throat, and smooths a silver strand of hair behind his daughter’s ear. “I mean, whatever you do I’m proud of you, and I love you even if you land all your jumps on your butt.”

Yuuri sighs and holds up a sparkly glove so Yukie can slip her hand inside. “That’s why your father’s not coaching you.”

“No, it’s because Yuri’s too angry to keep another job and we have pity,” Victor mumbles.

Yuri stands perfectly still, because he knows he has already been filmed too many times hitting other people while wearing his coach badge, especially other coaches, namely Jean-Jacques Leroy.

Yukie adjusts her gloves and hugs her fathers. The loudspeakers call for the next group of skaters to warm up. She hands her skate guards to Yuri and Yuuri has a strange sense of déjà vu. Her black dress sparkles under the spotlights and her silver ponytail flies behind her. She raises her hands to wave at the crowd and has a heart-shaped smile before starting her run through.

“Yuuri we have a child skating in senior, we’re old like Yakov,” Victor whines.

“I told you we could wait a couple of years but you let Yuri do the paperwork.”

“You know she was bored in juniors.”

“I wonder who she takes after.”

When they announce the end of the warm-up, Yuuri and Victor turn to leave the barrier and sit in the bleachers. Yukie pulls Yuuri by the sleeve before he can follow Victor.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“You’ll watch me, eh?”

Yuuri smiles. Yukie’s eyes shine with the same apprehension he once had when he met Victor all these years ago. He suddenly realizes how far he has come since then. He hugs his daughter tight.

“I won’t take my eyes off you.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at the same time sad and proud to post this last chapter. 
> 
> I can only thank you all for giving me the motivation I needed to finish this fic. With over 10k hits and 500 subscribers, it got more attention than I'd have ever dreamed, especially for mpreg. I got one comment saying _"I don't usually read mpreg at all but I'm starting to see the light of it all"_ (soyunperdedor), and all I can think of is "My job here is done." 
> 
> I also thank all the mothers I talked to, online and irl, and who inspired me to write this fic. 
> 
> Thank you for your reactions, your sweet comments, your kudos. I hope you enjoyed the ride! <3
> 
> -The Sprout
> 
> PS: I have a lot of domestic Victuuri fics planned for 2019, but in the meantime, here is a [tiny scene](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jLSdsbZZzMWBm0jW4SCYEo4hM2Ow1kzEXdm5VcELm0Q/edit?usp=sharing) that didn't make the cut in this fic, but I'm sure you'll appreciate if I judge by your comments on the previous chapters.


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